Wet Wet Wet | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 08 SEP 1994

Posted on May 22, 2023 by 80stastic

Well, this is a curious thing. Tonight’s ‘golden mic’ presenters are from a band that couldn’t be more 90s but a lot of the acts they introduce are from or have associations with the 80s. Yes, following Take That’s Mark and Robbie earlier in the year, East 17 are in the hot seat tonight and as with their arch rivals, the two members of the group chosen for the gig are probably the two most popular. I’m talking about Brian Harvey and Tony Mortimer but then can you imagine the other two geezers in the band doing it?!

Opening the show tonight are Blondie who you could argue went back to the 70s but they did have three consecutive No 1 singles in 1980 so they certainly count as a name from the 80s. Now there’s a few questions to be answered here. For a start, what were they doing in the charts in 1994? I thought Blondie’s 90s resurrection was much later in the decade.

*checks their discography*

Yeah, I was right. “Maria” wasn’t No 1 until 1999. So what gives here then? Well, it was to do with yet another compilation album. Despite there being two Blondie Best Ofs and a remix album in existence already by 1994 with “The Complete Picture” being as recently as 1991, Chrysalis/EMI decided what the world needed was another remix collection. “Beautiful: The Remix Album” was the what we got and it was trailed by a number of remixed, rereleased tracks that all made the UK Top 20 but as I say, I don’t remember any of this. The first one was “Atomic (Remix)” which made it to No 19.

OK, so the second question is “where we’re the rest of the band?” because there’s only Debbie Harry up there on stage all on her lonesome. Well, they were nowhere to be seen because they’d split in 1982 and Debbie had embarked on a subsequent solo career. So it seems that the band weren’t reforming then it was just a marketing stunt to promote the album. I wonder whether Debbie was already contractually obliged or if Chrysalis had to pay her a decent wedge for this promotional work? I hope it was the latter as the performance here does nothing but tarnish her fine legacy. Why is she dressed like it’s a come as Shirley Bassey themed party? Then there’s her vocal (which is the third question that needs answering) as there’s something screwy going on with it. Is she miming or at least singing along with a vocal backing track because it really doesn’t seem like she’s singing live? The whole thing is a mess and an undignified one at that.

Now it would appear that my theme of 80s acts on a 1994 TOTP show has fallen at the second hurdle with Corona, a most typical example of the Eurodance genre that dominated the charts in the early to mid 90s. I’m nothing if not tenuous though and so I make the connection to the 80s via the name of their debut and surely best remembered hit “Rhythm Of The Night”. Anyone else recall DeBarge? They were like an American version of Five Star (who themselves were a Tupperware take on The Jacksons) being a group made up of family members who had one (and just one) hit in the UK in 1985 with a calypso flavoured dance track called…yep…”Rhythm Of The Night”. A sickeningly upbeat number it made it to No 4 over here and No 3 in the US.

With the 80s theme dealt with, what about Corona then. Well, their song “Rhythm Of The Night” was considered by many to be an absolute banger and almost definitive example of Eurodance and it was certainly popular peaking at No 2 in the UK. As was an almost obligatory turn of events with Eurodance artists, the woman we see here fronting the act (one Olga Souza) wasn’t the person who supplied the vocals on the record. That was Giovanna Bersola who suffered from stage fright and so could only sing within the confines of the recording studio. Talking of confined spaces, when the world went into lockdown in 2020 due to the pandemic, the group received an unexpected profile boost on account of sharing their name with the group of viruses that caused COVID-19. Various memes arose from this association leading Olga to comment on it thus:

“I have seen a lot of memes. We are all alarmed right now. This kind of news surely brings us a lot of anxiety, because we don’t know how to deal with [the virus] yet. It would be a lot better if the world was infected by the song instead of that dangerous virus.”
“Cantora Corona desabafa após ser associada ao Coronavírus” [Singer Corona speaks out after being associated with Coronavirus]. RD1 (in Portuguese). 8 February 2020. Archived from the original on 27 March 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2020.

I’m guessing Olga would rather be remembered as per US American internet news and entertainment company Buzzfeed who ranked “Rhythm Of The Night” as No 2 in their ‘101 Greatest Dance Songs Of The 90s’ list.

Next a band who may have had their most successful period commercially in the 90s but they definitely started in the 80s and that’s a good enough link to my theme for this post for me. By September 1994 though, The Wonderstuff were actually no more having announced a split in June in a fan club newsletter. They’d even performed live for the final time in July so what were they doing in the charts again? Well, their label Polydor had decided to cash in one last time on their recently liquidated asset by releasing a Best Of album – the wonderfully titled “If The Beatles Had Read Hunter…The Singles” – and a single was required to promote it. With a decision that would unintentionally help out this post 29 years later, Polydor chose 1987 track “Unbearable”. Bingo! Another 80s connection! Originally released as their debut single, it failed to chart back then but would make No 16 seven years later and deservedly so as it’s a quality tune with its distinctive, rat-a-tat chorus “Ididn’tlikeyouverymuchwhenImetyou” spewed out by Miles Hunt a real winner.

The Wonderstuff’s story didn’t end in 1994 though as they reformed in 2000 and have played live and released new material since then amidst various line up changes with Hunt the only constant.

N.B. In a curious pop footnote, in their final foray into the Top 40, the Stuffies were joined in the chart this week by fellow Stourbridge grebos Pop Will Eat Itself who were having their own final hit with “Everything’s Cool”. Nice.

You can’t get more 80s than “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper can you? This wasn’t quite the same song though. Re-recorded with a reggae lilt (as was the overriding style of the time) and retitled “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)”, it was released to promote her Best Of “Twelve Deadly Cyns…And Then Some” (another great title like The Wonderstuff before her). The album was a big hit rather surprisingly peaking at No 2 and going double platinum in the UK. I say surprisingly because I wouldn’t have thought that there would have been that much appetite for Cyndi in 1994 but what did/do I know? The single also prospered peaking at No 4 just two places lower than the 1984 original.

Now whatever you think about Cyndi’s voice (and I don’t mind it), you’d have to admit it’s distinctive (some may even say unique). Sometimes it can grate – her vocals on “We Are The World” by USA For Africa are the musical equivalent of tearing polystyrene – but she does a good enough job here. We should probably give her credit for reworking an old hit as well – it would have been easy to have just rereleased the original. I think she has the look of Columbia from The Rocky Horror Picture Show here and talking of Columbia…

Making just their third appearance on TOTP but already celebrating going straight in at No 1 on the chart with debut album “Definitely Maybe” are Oasis. At the time it was the fastest selling debut in UK chart history and, of course, featured a track called “Columbia”. To commemorate this achievement, they’ve been invited on the show to play a song from the album and they’ve gone for its opener “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star”. And what an opener! More of a statement than a song, it bristles with energy and drive. It was never released as a single (except as a radio single to American stations) but it easily could have been and it is so recognisable that maybe some people would be surprised to learn that it wasn’t.

The fact that the album went straight to No 1 and was selling so quickly was irrefutable confirmation that something special was occurring – a phenomenon no less. It all seemed to happen so effortlessly and at such speed that it couldn’t be anything less. After just three singles of which only one made the Top 10 to suddenly this…it was extraordinary. Or was it? I’m sure Noel Gallagher is quoted somewhere as saying that they wanted to be the biggest band in the country and they just went out and did it and it was easy; words to that effect anyway. Oasis we’re here to stay and for the rest of the decade (and beyond).

OK, so I can’t make any viable links from Oasis to the 80s but we’re back on theme with the next band whose imperial phase was definitely in that decade. Not that Pet Shop Boys didn’t continue to have consistent and significant commercial success into the 90s as they certainly did but they didn’t have any No 1 singles throughout the whole decade whereas they achieved four in the 80s including three within five releases. Fast forward to 1994 and Neil and Chris were just coming to the end of the “Very” project with “Yesterday When I Was Mad” being the fifth and final single released from the album. Now I do like Pet Shop Boys and went to see them live almost 12 months ago exactly but this track is not one of my favourites of theirs. It’s almost as if they forgot to put a tune in there. Also, I’d had enough of the Howard Greenhalgh CGI videos by now (he’d directed every one for all five singles released from “Very”) although this one at least has a bit more of a human participation to it even if it is Neil Tennant in a straight jacket (the Chris Lowe lampshades are really too creepy though). We wouldn’t get any new material from the duo for 18 months though another remix album (“Disco 2”) appeared in the interim.

Kylie Minogue has had many incarnations but she started out in the 80s as a Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop princess so there’s my post theme ticked off. 1994 though was an important year for her as it saw her release her first material since leaving PWL and enter her ‘Dance Kylie’ phase. Signed to trendy label Deconstruction, home of M People and responsible for some huge house anthems by K-Klass and Bassheads, “Confide In Me” was chosen as her first post Hit Factory single. It was a good choice. Combining dance beats with a string section hook and a flavour of Eastern culture, it couldn’t have been further removed from what she had done before. When you consider her last single before this had been a cover of Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” to promote her Greatest Hits collection, well…the contrast couldn’t be starker. “Confide In Me” oozed class and proposed Kylie as a serious artist not just a hit-making pop puppet. Credit should be given to the producers and song writers of the track Brothers In Rhythm for their vision of what a fusing of dance and pop could sound like. Critics adored it with gushing reviews whilst the record buying public embraced it by sending it to No 2. For Kylie though, it was proof that she would not just survive life after Stock, Aitken and Waterman but thrive within it.

Here’s another act who achieved huge success in the 80s though the hits certainly didn’t stop once 1989 tipped over into 1990. Bon Jovi began the decade with a huge album in “Keep The Faith” which sold 8 million copies worldwide and generated six hit singles. The promotion of the album via said singles and a world tour stretched from the album’s release in 1992 into 1994 and there would be a new album (“These Days”) in 1995. Despite that hectic schedule, record company Polygram decided that there couldn’t be any let up in the release of Bon Jovi product and so a Best Of album called “Crossroads” was put together. The performance of it would prove that Polygram knew a thing or two about sales – it went six times platinum in the UK and has sold 21 million copies globally. It was the best selling album in the UK in 1994.

To help promote “Crossroads”, the track “Always” was released. A huge, dramatic, swooping rock ballad, it would give the band their biggest ever UK hit when it peaked at No 2. Now it’s not like Bon Jovi had never done a slow song before – I’m thinking “Never Say Goodbye”, “I’ll Be There For You” and “Bed Of Roses” but “Always” seemed different somehow. Grander, more epic but probably most of all (to me anyway) more cynical – a definite move to capture a specific market. I may be wrong of course and they did do it well. Just my own opinion as ever.

We’re finally here. Week 15. The very last week of Wet Wet Wet’s reign at the top of the charts with “Love Is All Around”. The story behind its demise is well known. The band themselves insisted that the single be deleted as they were not enjoying the backlash they were getting from people completely fed up with the song (some radio stations reportedly banned it from their playlists). It was a bold move. Given its slow descent down the charts, it could perhaps have outlasted Bryan Adams who spent 16 weeks at the top with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. A rumour that copies would actually be recalled from record stores proved incorrect but it was no longer being pressed. There must have been significant amounts of it still in the shops though as it would spend weeks travelling down the charts rather than dropping stone like straight away. At the time, the only record to be deleted whilst at No 1 previously was “The Fly” by U2 but they had always been upfront beforehand about the limited time it would be available for. With “Love Is All Around” not being on any Wet Wet Wet album at the time of its deletion, some cynics took the view that it was a calculated attempt to force punters into buying the soundtrack album to Four Weddings And A Funeral which the Wets record company Phonogram also had the licence to but I’m not convinced by that theory.

And so the story of the second long running No 1 in a matter of three years comes to an end. Did it help or hinder Wet Wet Wet’s career ultimately? Did people actually like it or not? Can you bear to hear it on the radio again today, some 29 years after the event or is even that too soon? I guess what I’m asking is this…”Is your mind made up by the way that you feel?”

And so to the record that knocked the Wets off their perch. Incorrectly but understandably remembered as a one hit wonder, Whigfield was quite the sales phenomenon herself. The week after this TOTP aired, her single “Saturday Night” would crash into the UK charts at No 1 making her the first unknown artist to do so with their debut single (Gabrielle’s “Dreams” entered the chart at No 2 before going to No 1 in 1993). She followed that up by selling 220,000 copies in one week giving it the highest selling figures for a single in the UK since Band Aid and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” a decade earlier. It would spend four weeks as our No 1 and end the year as the UK’s second biggest selling single of 1994 behind “Love Is All Around”. The buzz around the song was huge and it was totally expected to top the chart eventually. Tiny and Brian even predict that Wet Wet Wet wouldn’t last another week because of Whigfield. They were right. And that will do for this post. Dee dee na na na…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Blondie	Atomic (Remix)	No
2	Corona	Rhythm Of The Night	I did not
3	The Wonderstuff	Unbearable	Good tune but no
4	Cyndi Lauper	Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)	Negative
5	Oasis	Rock ‘N’ Roll Star	I bought the album
6	Pet Shop Boys	Yesterday When I Was Mad	Nah
7	Kylie Minogue	Confide In Me	No but my wife did
8	Bon Jovi	Always	Nope
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	It’s another no
10	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And finally… no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001lst4/top-of-the-pops-08091994

TOTP 01 SEP 1994

Posted on May 18, 2023 by 80stastic

OK, before we get into the music, there’s a bit of housekeeping to take care of. Firstly, we’ve missed a whole episode which hasn’t happened for quite some time. Nothing to do with Operation Yewtree nor presenters who hadn’t signed the waiver for BBC4 to broadcast the repeats they featured in – no this was a matter of a technical nature. The tapes for the TOTP shown on 25 August 1994 held in the BBC archive were deemed to be not of broadcast quality and so we miss out on what was surely one of the more interesting guest presenters in Malcolm MacLaren. Despite being a bit of an arse I’m sure, I’ve always had a soft spot for Malcolm and could listen to his drivel for hours. At least he led an interesting life. I’ve checked the running order for that show and I don’t think we missed much. Many acts we’d already seen before including Red Dragon, Shampoo and unbelievably Let Loose again! We did however miss Dinosaur Jnr which might have been distracting at least plus the return of Kylie Minogue with her first new material since leaving PWL as she entered her ‘Dance Kylie’ phase. Oh well.

The other bit of housekeeping is regarding tonight’s host who we haven’t seen before. So who was / is Claire Sturgess? Well, she’s a voice over artist and DJ currently working on Absolute Radio where she’s been since 2015. Back in 1994 though, she was a Radio 1 DJ presenting the rock show on Sunday evenings. She would stay at the BBC until 1997 but only hosted TOTP one more time before being replaced by Lisa I’Anson.

Right, on with the tunes and we start with one that perhaps more than any other (with the possible exception of “Common People” by Pulp) has come to be associated (rightly or wrongly) with the Britpop movement. Think of “Parklife” (the song) by Blur and what comes to mind? Phil Daniels? Of course. The “vorsprung durch technik’ line? Yep. The iconic video with Damon in that tracksuit top camping it up whilst an ice cream van drives by. Without doubt. They’re all woven into the fabric of the time but sometimes I think we forget what a strange song “Parklife” really is. A track where all the verses are spoken in a cockney accent, a chorus that you could imagine Dick Van Dyke singing in one of those musicals he starred in and lyrics about brewer’s droop, dirty pigeons and habitual voyeurs. And yet it all hangs together perfectly to the point that we didn’t bat an eyelid when it was released but instead accepted it as another example of Blur’s pursuit to celebrate ‘Englishness’. Except it wasn’t. Here’s Graham Coxon courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Graham Coxon on "Parklife": "A lot of people thought it was a celebration of Englishness, but it was actually very sarcastic. [It] wasn't about the working class, it was about the park class: dustbin men, pigeons, joggers – things we saw every day on the way to the studio." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 5, 2023

In this performance, Daniels is word perfect and Damon, relieved of the stress of doing all the heavy lifting vocals wise, seems to be enjoying his freedom to ham it up on stage more than usual. My personal memory of this song though would come three months later at Christmas. I was asked to co-coordinate the works Christmas do for all the Our Price shops in the area. I found a venue and we got one of the staff at the Piccadilly, Manchester store to do the DJ-ing (if you worked in a record shop there was always someone who was either in a band or a DJ on the staff). The manager I organised the shindig with (Rick) was a bit nervous on the actual night about whether people were having a good time or not and especially about the music being played. Our DJ put on “Girls & Boys” which seemed a safe choice but which only served to agitate Rick into shouting at him “Give ‘em Parklife Will, give ‘em Parklife!”. Such was the influence of Blur and that song in particular in 1994.

P.S. I think Will did indeed give ‘em “Parklife” at some point in the evening.

Oh great! Another soap star turned pop star. This time the actor is from EastEnders reviving bad memories of Nick ‘Wicksy’ Berry and Anita ‘Angie’ Dobson. Sean Maguire’s stay in the soap had been short (January to December 1993) but he had been a big hit with the audience (especially the teenage female section of it). It was almost inevitable then that he’d give the old pop star lark a go and here he was, eight months after leaving EastEnders, back on our screens on the BBC’s premier music show. Unbelievably, despite not being able to shift any meaningful amount of units of either of his two albums, he would rack up eight Top 40 singles over a three year period. The first of those was “Someone To Love” and it’s a decent slice of late summer pop which seems to have pinched a bit from Kool And The Gang’s “Celebration”. Maguire sells it well enough and there’s been less likely pop stars (Stefan Dennis anyone?) but I’m guessing that his record label couldn’t have envisaged another six hits after this one. They were all pretty consistent as well. Look at these chart positions:

14 – 27 – 18 – 22 – 16 – 12 – 14 – 27

They’re not too shabby for a soap actor turned pop star. Maguire played Irish wannabe footballer Aidan Brosnan in EastEnders. Hmm. A footballer called Maguire who went onto have a career as a singer. Man Utd’s Harry Maguire as a pop star anyone?

I referenced this record the other week but it wasn’t really pre-planned – it just sort of played out that way. I’m talking about “Endless Love” by Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross. I mentioned their version as the record that knocked Boyz II Men off the No 1 spot in New Zealand but I’d already referred to the Lionel Richie / Diana Ross 1981 original when stating that I hadn’t heard a song basically regurgitated as a different track as I believed Boyz II Men had done with “End Of The Road” and “I’ll Make Love To You” since Lionel Richie rewrote “Endless Love” as “Truly”. I’d actually forgotten that this duet existed until these TOTP repeats aired but exist it does so I’ll have to discuss it. It came from a whole album of covers recorded by Luther called, rather blandly, “Songs” which already had a Lionel Richie song on the track listing in “Hello” but Sony president Tommy Mottola and his then wife Mariah decided that they could boost the album’s chances of success by having her appear on it and so the cover of “Endless Love” came to be. It was a sound business strategy – Mariah was perhaps at the very peak of her popularity with her latest album “Music Box” achieving huge global sales and indeed her contribution helped “Songs” to platinum sales and a No 1 chart position in the UK alone. The single also performed well going to No 2 in America and No 3 here. For me though, it’s a very faithful reproduction and rather pointless and anodyne. I suppose there was a gap of 13 years between the release of the original and the cover so maybe it’s possible there were people out there who didn’t know the Richie / Ross version and so came to it as a brand new song? Or perhaps people did know it and were reminded how much they’d liked the original but in those days before streaming and Spotify, they couldn’t just get access to the song and so bought what was available, the Vandross / Carey remake? I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to work out how some of these songs managed to be hits – and I wrote a dissertation about it whilst a student at Poly.

Next we find Terrorvision having a very steady year of consolidating their success and building their fanbase as they are back on TOTP performing their fourth Top 40 hit of the year “Pretend Best Friend”. And when I say steady, I mean incredibly consistent. Look at these chart peaks for those four singles:

29 – 21 – 25 – 25

A fifth single was released before 1994 was out and it made it to No 24. Their first single of the following year peaked at No 22. Like I say, incredibly consistent. As for the song itself, I don’t recall it but it kind of sounds how I expected it to with Tony Wright launching into a high speed rap that is vaguely reminiscent of “Ant Rap” before the almost shouted chorus. There’s also a bit where it all slows down and Tony wields a megaphone which is all rather incongruous. Good song title though.

After the exclusive of a double live by satellite section in the show last week, head producer Ric Blaxill has gone in hard on the idea by repeating the ‘satellite segue’ (as they’ve named it) for this week. We start off in Philadelphia with a curiously dull performance by the aforementioned Boyz II Men of “I’ll Make Love To You”. Now, my knowledge of the geography of Philadelphia is mostly limited to the scene in Rocky where Sylvester Stallone runs up the 72 steps leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the iconic training scene. Luckily for me, I think that’s near to where this performance takes place with the mini stage erected in the Benjamin Franklin Parkway right in front of the Washington Monument. The whole set up seems to be adhering to Blaxill’s stated desire to get the live by satellite slots to feature well known landmarks that have nothing to do with the music per se but which are a step up from the performances in empty theatre halls we have seen previously. It’s all a bit odd though. The parkway has people wandering through it minding their own business or joggers doing their own version of the Rocky training regimen whilst four guys are singing “I’ll Make Love To You” whilst they pass by. Shouldn’t be allowed really.

The second part of the satellite segue stays in America but transports us to New York and specifically to The Bottom Line club in Greenwich Village where we find Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories. Now it might not be recognisable as a landmark like the Washington Monument before it but this venue was legendary in its own right. Owners Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky put on a huge amount of musical talent in the 30 years the club was open including the likes of Prince, The Police, Benatar, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Miles Davis, Dolly Parton….and in the fall of 1994 Lisa Loeb. But who was she?

Well, for someone who is a one hit wonder in the UK (she managed a few more hits in the US), Lisa has quite the biography and discography – her Wikipedia entry is sizeable to say the least. She had been recording music and performing live since the late 80s but it was a friendship with neighbour and actor Ethan Hawke that gave Lisa her lucky break. Having met through the NYC theatre community, Hawke gave Loeb’s song “Stay (I Missed You)” to Ben Stiller who was directing the film Reality Bites that Hawke was starring in and he made the decision to use it over the end credits. The rest really is history. The track’s pretty, folk-infused pop melody proved irresistible to the American public who sent it to No 1 making Lisa and her band the first ever artist to top the chart there without being signed to a label.

Lisa looked a bit like Nana Mouskouri’s hipper younger sister but there was more to her than her trademark glasses. As well as being a musician, she also runs a number of businesses including one for fair trade coffee and, making use of that glasses association, the Lisa Loeb Eyewear Collection with each frame being named after one of her song titles. She’s also written children’s books and done some acting though one of her credits is for one of the worst films of all time – Hot Tub Time Machine 2. If you haven’t seen it and stumble across it whilst channel flipping then heed my advice – Don’t stay (you’ll be glad you missed it).

One of last week’s satellite segue acts are in the TOTP studio this week as Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry move up to No 3 with “7 Seconds”. The staging of this one starts out simple yet effective with a single spotlight centred on first Youssou and then Neneh as each takes the vocal lead in turn. However, the production team can’t have been totally won over by the idea as by the time the first chorus comes around, they’re both floodlit and there’s a multi screen video installation behind them showing the official promo film that accompanied the single. Shame. I thought a more paired back, minimalist setting would work best for this particular track but the show disagreed and went for Youssou N’More.

https://youtu.be/GUua-NUYlsg

It would take a braver man than me to start a political rant about this government’s despicable deportation to Rwanda scheme in a pop music blog but I am inevitably put in mind of it by the next song which is “Love Can Build A Bridge” by Children For Rwanda which was a charity single to raise money for Save The Children. If this all sounds familiar but not quite how you remember it then it’s quite possible you’re thinking of the version by Cher, Chrissie Hynde and the aforementioned Neneh Cherry that was released for Comic Relief just 6 months on from this and which went to No 1 for a week. Sadly for the Children For Rwanda single, it failed to sell nearly as well and peaked outside the Top 40.

We’ve reached week 14 of 15 (we missed week 13 due to the broadcast quality issue discussed earlier) for Wet Wet Wet’s reign at No 1 with “Love Is All Around” and whilst I’m really struggling to say anything of interest about it after so many appearances on the show, it seems like Ric Blaxill might be finding it difficult to keep us all interested as well. To shake things up a bit, he’s doubled down on the live by satellite feature and has the band beaming in from LA. This definitely falls into the category of performing in front of a world famous landmark with the Hollywood sign prominent in the background. The end is coming though. There’s only one more week and the story behind it’s demise will be discussed in the next post.

The play out song is “We Are The Pigs” by Suede. 1994 was a year of massive upheaval for the band most notably due to the departure of guitarist Bernard Butler who formally left their ranks on 8th July following tensions whilst recording sophomore album “Dog Man Star”. As if that wasn’t enough, difficult second album syndrome raised its ugly head. Not that the band didn’t make the album they wanted to; they did, but the direction they took confused critics and some of the fans after their electrifying eponymous debut. Many saw its grandiose soundscapes as pretentious and although it sold well enough, it was seen as a bit of a step backwards commercially in comparison to its predecessor. History has been kind to the album though and revisionism has it hailed as an under appreciated and misunderstood at the time classic. When the band played five nights at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2003 with each night dedicated to one of their studio albums, it was the tickets for the Dog Man Star show that sold the quickest.

As for its lead single, “We Are The Pigs” is certainly dark in nature and tone but it’s still a huge tune. There’s even a bit in it which sounds like that reverb sound in “Peter Gunn” by Diane Eddy and subsequently The Art Of Noise. Do you think that’s totally innocent or knowingly inserted?

The almost post apocalyptic video with burning crosses, cars afire and masked gangs roaming the streets puts me in mind of the climax of The Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, the ending of which had to be reshot as audience reaction at test screenings deemed it to violent and pessimistic. Similarly, the promo for Suede’s single got little airplay due to it being banned for being too violent. This may have contributed to the track only making it to No 18 in the UK Top 40.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Blur	Parklife	Not the single but I had the album obviously
2	Sean Maguire	Someone To Love	No
3	Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross	Endless Love	Never happening
4	Terrorvision	Pretend Best Friend	Nope
5	Boyz II Men	I’ll Make Love To You	Nah
6	Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories	Stay (I Missed You)	Nice song but no
7	Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry	7 Seconds	I did not
8	Children For Rwanda	Love Can Build A Bridge	Negative
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	Another no
10	Suede	We Are The Pigs	Could have done but no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ln6m/top-of-the-pops-01091994

TOTP 18 AUG 1994

Posted on May 16, 2023 by 80stastic

We’re still in the long, hot Summer of 1994 and despite the singles chart feeling like it’s been stagnating for a while with a number of records hanging around for weeks on end, this particular TOTP only features three songs that have been on previously. It also has not one but two live by satellite performances. Well, there’s only so many times you can have Let Loose in the studio before you have to shake things up a bit! Having said all of that, we start with a tune that has definitely been on the show a couple of times before. China Black were at their chart peak this week with the rerelease of “Searching” finding its natural high of No 4.

Seeing as this was their biggest ever hit, I guess you could say that they were at the apex of their career arc. Or were they? Maybe a bigger achievement was being nominated for a Brit Award for Best British Single in 1995? Or being invited by Princess Diana to perform at one of her Aids Trust concerts at Wembley Stadium? It surely wasn’t losing to Hue and Cry in their heat of the ITV entertainment show Hit Me Baby One More Time in 2005? You remember that show which brought back former pop stars from the 70s, 80s and 90s to compete in essentially a talent contest? Sure you do. China Black performed “Searching” (obviously) and their cover version (each act had to do a cover version in addition to their own track) was “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” by The Darkness. They were up against the aforementioned Kane brothers, Sinitta, The Real Thing and Hazel O’Connor with Hue and Cry progressing to the final which was won by Shakin’ Stevens. I’m not selling it to you am I?

And this was the point when I relented and gave in to the inevitable. When it came to Oasis, I was officially ‘avin’ it. I’d dillied, dallied and wavered over their first two singles, unsure about whether to get on board or not but the first time I heard “Live Forever”, I knew any further resistance was futile. History would show that not everything they did was of the same standard and that their best by date had probably expired long before they did but in 1994 and in every year since, “Live Forever” was a tune. There was just something joyous and joyful about its melody whilst the lyrics, though minimal and basically just repeated throughout, sounded so positive. Maybe (perhaps even definitely) it was just what I needed to hear as I was having a difficult time at work, still struggling to adapt to the culture and clientele of the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester. On reflection, it was the sound of a band showing what they were really capable of, what their one time nemesis and later pal Robbie Williams would sing as letting their wings unfold. Famously written by Noel as a f**k that retort to Nirvana’s song “I Hate Myself And Want To Die”, the line ‘we see things they’ll never see’ has almost become a part of the national lexicon though it was actually intended as a very personal lyric about laughing at an in joke with a friend.

I only recently discovered that Noel Gallagher based the song’s structure around the chord progression in “Shine A Light” by The Rolling Stones whilst listening to their “Exile On Main Street” album and yeah, I guess I can hear the similarities though the two tunes are hardly identical.

As for the performance here, some things have changed and some things have remained the same since the last time they were on the show. The presenter scheduling gods have allowed for them to be introduced by Bruno Brookes again (hopefully they got on better than the last time when he insisted on calling them an indie band) but this time drummer Tony McCarroll has been shifted to the much more traditional position at the back of the stage with Liam Gallagher replacing him up front and centre. Talking of McCarroll, the symbolic removing of him from the front of the stage wasn’t the only clue to his future fate associated with “Live Forever”. The UK promo video includes a scene where the rest of the band are burying him alive. Within eight months of this TOTP appearance he would be sacked from the band and replaced by Alan White. He was still in the band though when next single “Cigarettes And Alcohol” was released in the October. The fourth single from the “Definitely Maybe” album, it would be their biggest hit to date when it made No 7 eclipsing “Live Forever” which peaked at No 10. And it was at that point that there was no looking back for the band nor the rest of us. Strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Next a song that I don’t remember at all but which is very familiar on listening to it now. How is that possible? Well, the basis of this No 9 hit dance track “Eighteen Strings” is clearly the riff from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana (a second song on the show inspired by the Seattle rockers following Oasis directly before them). However, it’s not an actual sample but more a very close approximation presumably because the artist – Tinman – didn’t have copyright clearance. This was the second dance track in a matter of weeks to be based on the grunge classic following Abigail’s take on it. I think I prefer the Tinman interpretation though I’m not a fan of either really. It turns out that the guy behind the project – one Paul Dakeyne – is from Hull where I have been living these last 20 years. As with his hit single from nearly 30 ago though, I’m not familiar with him.

Eternal are next who are still churning out the hits one year into their pop career. “So Good” was their fourth chart single on the spin but unlike its three predecessors, it failed to make the Top 10 peaking at No 13. There’s a reason for that I believe which is that, despite its title, it’s actually not that good. A distinctly average R&B pop song, it’s got an annoying sound effect squeak like air being pushed out of a small space that runs throughout it which tips it into the bracket of annoying for me. I’ve got a pair of shoes that make a similar noise every time I wear them. Curiously, Boyzone also released a single called “So Good” at a similar stage of their career and it was also a low point. Fortunately for both camps, both songs are largely forgotten with the perspective of nearly 30 years distance.

Louise Nurding would famously leave the group in 1995 bringing back memories of when Siobhan Fahey left Bananarama in 1988. In previous posts on my 80s TOTP blog, I’ve posited a theory that you could see signs of a split between Siobhan and Sarah/Keren in terms of the outfits she wore and her willingness to deviate from the group’s dance routines (loose as they were). However, I can’t see any such clues from Louise. They’re all on message with identical outfits and the dance steps are synchronised to the hilt. I’ll keep a watching brief on future performances though.

Time for that live by satellite segue now starting in the University of New Orleans where we find Soundgarden performing the only song of theirs that I could have named before, “Black Hole Sun”. Taken from their multi platinum album “Superunknown”, this would prove to be the band’s biggest ever UK hit when it peaked at No 13. I’m struck watching this in concert performance by the crowd surfing going on in the audience. I’ve never quite understood the appeal of this practice – it looks likely to cause personal injury and the thought of being upside down in a big crowd seems as scary as hell. Reading up on it though, it seems it can be used as the fastest way to transport gig goers in need of medical attention through the throng. My only experience of the phenomenon came in 1996 when I went to one of the Oasis concerts at Maine Road. Not that there were people crowd surfing but passing plastic glasses backwards over people’s heads was the best way of getting the crowd’s dinks to them from the bar.

Clearly wanting to make the most of having two satellite link up performances on the same show, Bruno Brookes does a voiceover segue in the style of an astronaut communicating with Mission Control. I’m not sure it works that well to be honest. Anyway, it leads us to New York where we join Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry for a performance of their single “7 Seconds”. The single is finally into the Top 10 after being on the charts for 9 weeks on its way to a high of No 3. In total, it would spend a whopping 27 weeks inside the Top 75.

Youssou and Neneh perform against a set backdrop which has been made up to look like a New York street and it is giving me a mix of vibes including Singin’ In The Rain, the Skid Row neighbourhood from Little Shop of Horrors and Hoagy’s Alley from the Top Cat cartoon. As the caption says, the song is sung in three different languages – English, French and Wolof which is a language of Senegal, Mauritania and the Gambia though, to maintain the Hanna-Barbera cartoon link, sounds like how Penelope Pitstop used to pronounce “wolf”.

https://youtu.be/VXcRmIdUnVU

Just to hammer home the space satellite link up theme, Bruno Brookes appears in a spaceman outfit before introducing the next artist. Overkill much? Anyway, I (along with many others I would expect) had Sophie B. Hawkins down at the time as a one hit wonder. A damned catchy pop single in “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” in 1992 and then nothing Top 40 wise. Two years on and she was one of the last people I expected to see back in our charts but here she was with “Right Beside You”, the lead single from her second album “Whaler”. Neither that album nor her previous one “Tongues And Tails” pulled up any trees sales wise over here (both peaked at No 46) but her singles were a bit more durable. DIWIWYL looks like a mid table football team’s form guide when written like that but it stayed on our charts for 9 weeks peaking at No 14 whilst RBY did even better staying for 12 weeks and peaking at No 13.

Many a critic drew parallels with Madonna on hearing “Right Beside You” and whilst I can see similarities with the beach set black and white promo and Madge’s “Cherish” video, it sounds more like Belinda Carlisle to me – maybe a combination of “Mad About You” and “Circle In The Sand”? Sophie would only have two more minor hit singles though she is still a live draw and released her most recent album this year.

What are the chances? One R&B harmony group is in the charts all Summer and just as they appear to be running out of steam, the group that many compared them to in the first place return with a song that not only sounds similar to their chart peers but also the own massive No 1 from two years prior. I refer to Boyz II Men whose “End Of The Road” single spent 13 weeks at the top of the US charts in 1992 (and was also a No 1 here) and All 4 One whose “I Swear” also topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks (and spent 7 weeks at No 2 in the UK). With that single just starting to drop down our charts, Boyz II Men decide to reintroduce themselves with “I’ll Make Love To You”. I’d not heard an artist just decide to make the same record all over again quite so obviously since Lionel Richie rewrote “Endless Love” as “Truly”. Not only did it sound the same as “End Of The Road” but it replicated its chart success by going to No 1 in America for 14 weeks* (it topped out at No 5 over here).

*They would break their own record when their collaboration with Mariah Carey “One Sweet Day” was atop the US charts for 16 weeks! Talking of Mariah, it was another of her collaborations (this time with Luther Vandross) that knocked “I’ll Make Love To You” off the No 1 position in the New Zealand charts with their cover of…yep…the aforementioned “Endless Love”. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

This concept of a new artist making a genre of music that was popularised by another act shortly before them before the original protagonist returned to the charts puts me in mind if that time that sophisti-pop was represented in the Top 40 by Curiosity Killed The Cat with “Down To Earth” before The Blow Monkeys – who had hit 12 months before with “Digging Your Scene” – returned to the charts alongside Curiosity with “It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”. And there endeth the lesson on recurring musical genres.

And talking of records being at the top of the charts for months, here’s our very own version Wet Wet Wet who have now been at No 1 for 12 weeks. I mean, what else can I say about “Love Is All Around”? It’s too early in its run to talk about how its demise came about so where does that leave me? How about what the band themselves made of the record’s success? Here’s Marti Pellow from an interview in The Guardian in 2021:

“I was in a cinema and the trailer came up for Four Weddings and a Funeral, and they played a bit of the song and a guy behind me went: ‘Ah, not that song again,’ and I turned round to him and said: ‘Imagine how I feel!’”

Simon Hattenstone: The G2 Interview Music, The Guardian, 29 March 2021

After not being one for a couple of weeks, we have the return of the play out song in the form of “Warriors” by Aswad. The follow up to Top 5 hit “Shine”, it would be their penultimate Top 40 entry when it peaked at No 33. Sadly, founding member Drummie Zeb died aged 62 in September 2022. Also in the obituaries is Stanley Appel who died this week and who was the producer responsible for the ‘Year Zero’ revamp of TOTP in 1991. RIP.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	China Black	Searching	No
2	Oasis	Live Forever	Not the single but I bought Definitely Maybe – didn’t we all?
3	Tinman	Eighteen Strings	Nah
4	Eternal	So Good	Nope
5	Soundgarden	Black Hole Sun	Negative
6	Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry	7 Seconds	I did not
7	Sophie B. Hawkins	Right Beside You	Not for me
8	Boyz II Men	I’ll Make Love To You	Ooh no!
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	Another no
10	Aswad	Warriors	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ln6k/top-of-the-pops-18081994

TOTP 10 AUG 1994

Posted on May 12, 2023 by 80stastic

This TOTP aired on a Wednesday rather than the normal Thursday due to the BBC’s coverage of the European Athletics Championships taking place in Helsinki. A couple of years later, the show was permanently shifted from a Thursday to a Friday night initially in a 7pm time slot before some idiot made the decision to move it to a 7.30 start time thereby putting it up against Coronation Street. What on earth was the thinking behind that decision? It’s as if someone was deliberately trying to kill the show off. Hmm. This was also a ‘live’ episode so be on alert because, as Commander Shore said on Stingray, “Anything can happen in the next half hour…”

Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is tonight’s host and the first act he introduces are Red Dragon featuring Brian and Tony Gold with their hit single “Compliments On Your Kiss”. I went into the back story of this one the last time it was on the show so I don’t propose to go onto that all over again. Instead, I’d quite like to talk about this performance and more specifically the staging of it.

I can understand the naff, cardboard cut out palm trees as it’s a lilting, summery tune that conjures up images of sunny beaches and obviously the neon lips do tie in with the song title but is that meant to be a smouldering volcano in the background? What’s that all about? Oh, is it meant to be a dragon as in Red Dragon? It’s hard to see because of the dry ice pouring out of it but I really can’t detect much of a dragon shape in there. They really should have blown the props budget on something like this from Star Trek…

Now, here’s an immediate chance for the TOTP producers to redeem themselves props wise as The Brand New Heavies perform “Midnight At The Oasis”. So the clue is in the song title guys. What image comes to mind when you think of an oasis (that’s an oasis not Oasis as in the Gallagher brothers whose band were hardly household names at this point anyway)? Palm trees? A natural water source like a spring or well? That’s the classic take on it when people see mirages in the desert no? Easy. So we do have some palm trees or at least some vegetation (whether it’s fake or not) which is an upgrade on the cardboard version that Red Dragon got. There’s no water to be seen though but I guess Health & Safety would have put a stop to any of that with all those electrics about. However, what is not understandable is the pyramid towering large at the stage at the back. Why is that there? The pyramids have nothing to do with an oasis do they? That’s just really lazy.

As for the song, I would suggest that this is the band’s most well known (though not biggest) hit what with it being a cover of a song that had already been a hit in the UK. The original was by Maria Muldaur and peaked at No 21 in the UK in 1974. The Brand New Heavies’ version is a pretty faithful to its predecessor and was perfect daytime radio playlist fodder for that long, hot summer of 1994.

If it’s Simon Mayo in the presenter seat then we are bound to get an awful attempt at comedy from him at some point and it comes in his intro for Future Sound Of London – “which is almost certainly coughing, gasping and wheezing” he quips – what a card! Anyway, I remember there being a certain amount of fuss about these electronic dance pioneers and I definitely remember the rather striking artwork on the cover of their “Lifeforms” album though I couldn’t have told you what it sounded like at all. Listening back to the title track that was released as a single, there’s an awful lot going on in there; some trip-hop beats, some ambient stylings and an otherworldly vocal from Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. All a bit too overwhelming for my pop ear* though with the whole thing not helped by the visually overstimulating computer graphics video that seemed to be all the rage in this year (didn’t we see a similar type of thing from Pet Shop Boys for their “Liberation” single recently?). “Lifeforms” (the single) peaked at No 14 whilst its album counterpart made it to No 6.

*Sounds like Popeye’s long, lost cousin

Now I did attempt some humour in a recent post about the name of the next act but that doesn’t excuse Simon Mayo from doing the same here with his reference to Head & Shoulders. Away with you! Shampoo (for it is they) are on the show again to promote their single “Trouble” and I’m drawn to the fact that for the second time, their performance hardly involves any movement by the duo at all. They just sort of stand there, slightly crouched leaning into other for the duration. Were they not confident dancers or can’t you actually dance to their track? Judging by the efforts of the studio audience, it might be the latter.

The last time they were on, I talked about how they somehow carved out a little footnote for themselves in pop history despite only having a smattering of hit singles (of which this was the biggest). What I didn’t mention was that they invented ‘Girl Power’ before the Spice Girls took all the credit for it. Well, invented is probably a stretch but their final hit was called “Girl Power” and it charted one week before Sporty, Baby, Scary, Posh and Ginger’s debut “Wannabe”. To be fair though, although Geri Halliwell admitted in a 2016 interview that she pinched the phrase from Shampoo, Jacqui and Carrie themselves probably weren’t the original originators as Martin Fry once sang. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

"Girl Power" was previously the title of a 1991 zine by US riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, which is presumably where Shampoo saw the phrase. Mel C: "It was very much in existence already. It was then Geri who shouted it during an early television interview and it stuck." #TOTP pic.twitter.com/MGeGawG3pU
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 21, 2023

“Trouble” was covered by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine as the B-side to their 1995 single “The Young Offender’s Mum”.

Of the many sub genres of dance music that did the rounds in the 90s, surely one of the nastiest was Eurodance covers of rock and pop songs. We’d already had the likes of East Side Beat desecrating Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like The Wind” and Rage do a similar hatchet job on “Run To You” by Bryan Adams but by 1994 the timeline between the original track and the naff dance treatment was shortening. In the case of DJ Miko, the time elapsed was just one year from 4 Non Blondes taking “What’s Up” to No 2 and them releasing their vile version. What a truly awful record this was. A tacky, happy hardcore backing applied to an unconvincing rock vocal and…well, that was it really. DJ Miko wasn’t really a DJ nor in fact an actual person but an umbrella term for an Italian dance collective fronted by keyboardist Monier Quartararo Gagliardo featuring a number of studio vocalists with the whole thing going managed by Milan based record company Dig It International. The latter had quite an appropriate name as the whole sorry enterprise should have been buried at the conception stage with a clear instruction for the soil never to be disturbed.

https://youtu.be/2SyKio7ksuU

Right, what’s Mayo on about now? Woodstock 2? When did that happen? Well, turns out he was right as this follow up festival to its legendary predecessor took place in Saugerties, New York (70 miles from the site of the 1969 original) on the weekend following this TOTP. I suppose he had to get that right as he was plugging Radio 1’s coverage of it. Anyway, billed as 2 More Days of Peace and Music, it was, by all accounts, poorly managed with the size of the crowd (estimates had it at 350,000) meaning security rules and policies surrounding alcohol etc were unenforceable. Tragically, three people died whilst attending the festival. As it was a three day event, the number of artists appearing was colossal including Metallica, Aerosmith, Green Day, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel…I could go on but won’t. Look it all up for yourself on Wikipedia like I had to.

For a festival promoted as being about peace, there were certainly a lot of incidents that didn’t fit the vibe. The lead singer of Jackyl, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, took a chainsaw to a stool and fired a rifle in the air. Meanwhile, the large volume of rainfall created a huge mud bath on the site that resulted in the break out of mud fights between both Green Day and Primus and their audiences. Nine Inch Nails admitted to playing the festival purely for the appearance fee to offset the cost of their current tour – so much for peace and music then. A number of artists that had performed at the original Woodstock reappeared for the 1994 version including The Band, Santana, Crosby, Stills & Nash and the next artist on this TOTP – Joe Cocker.

Now my knowledge of Joe is limited to say the least. I know he was from Sheffield, that he had a very gravelly voice, that he had a No 1 with a cover of The Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends” that was used as the theme tune to The Wonder Years, that he duetted with Jennifer Warnes on that song from An Officer And A Gentleman and…well, that he’s dead I suppose. I certainly don’t know about this song – “The Simple Things” – without looking it up online. It was taken from an album called “Have A Little Faith” and would reach No 17 but it seems very lacklustre to me and entirely forgettable. Sadly, Joe would die of lung cancer in 2014 having smoked 40 cigarettes a day until he quit in 1991.

The early to mid 90s saw a host of female soul singers* come to the fore. Juliet Roberts, Shara Nelson, Dina Carroll, N’Dea Davenport who we saw with The Brand New Heavies earlier…add to that list Carleen Anderson who, having found initial success with Young Disciples, carved out a solo career for herself. “True Spirit” was not only the title track from her album but the third hit single on the spin for her in 1994. It doesn’t do a lot for me though. Clearly she has a great voice but the track itself seems so sluggish and a bit to caught up in trying to display its soul credentials. I think that for each of those singles, Carleen has appeared on TOTP and every time, the show’s caption person has noted that she is the goddaughter of James Brown. Give it a rest! Despite what I said about all those female soul singers, anybody would think it’s a man’s man’s man’s world.

* Is that Caron Wheeler of Soul II Soul fame up there with Carleen on stage doing backing vocals? Yet another soul singer that came to prominence in the 90s!

No! It can’t be! Not again! Is this the fourth time Let Loose have been on the show performing “Crazy For You”?! What more am I supposed to say about this lot and their song? Look, here’s some stats for you OK? 16 weeks on the Top 40, 9 consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 and the 8th best selling single of the year. Enough? No? Well, despite all that success, they never really consolidated on it to become the next big teen group did they? Sure, six hit singles followed it including two further Top Tenners but could you name any of them? Well, I looked them up and I do recall the follow up “Seventeen” but of the rest of them, the only title I recognise is a cover of Bread’s “Make It With You”, a blatant attempt at career-reviving if ever I saw one. Still, to be remembered for one massive hit song is no mean achievement. How many of us out there can boast the same?

Well, if I was struggling for words for Let Loose, what more is there to be said about Wet Wet Wet and “Love Is All Around” after an 11th week at the top of the charts? Well, I’m not going to say anything but instead refer back to Simon Mayo’s intro for it in which he says that when it first went to No 1 “Jürgen Klinsmann was just a cheating German”. I knew it! I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist making a comment about how the striker had signed for his beloved Spurs! I said so in the last post when I made mention that he’d signed for them on the day that TOTP aired and that it was a good job it was Mark Goodier as that week’s host and not Mayo as the latter would definitely have gone on about it and here he is a week later doing just that. Not just smug but predictable as well then.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Red Dragon featuring Brian and Tony Gold	Compliments On Your Kiss	No
2	The Brand New Heavies	Midnight At The Oasis	No. but my wife had the album
3	Future Sound Of London	Lifeforms	Not for me thanks
4	Shampoo	Trouble	Nope
5	DJ Miko	What’s Up	Hell no!
6	Joe Cocker	The Simple Things	Nah
7	Carleen Anderson	True Spirit	Negative
8	Let Loose	Crazy For You	No but my wife did
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	I did not

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ldp8/top-of-the-pops-10081994

TOTP 04 AUG 1994

Posted on May 8, 2023 by 80stastic

Due to BBC4’s relentless schedule of broadcasting two TOTP repeats a week (which is killing me by the way), we’ve already reached August of 1994. And we know what August means…the start of a new football season. On the very day this show aired, Spurs bought Jürgen Klinsmann from Monaco and despite playing for them for just one season, would become a fan favourite, rebuilding his reputation in England as being a ‘diver’ thanks to this celebration on his debut…

Thank God tonight’s presenter isn’t Spurs fan Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo or we’d have to suffer a whole show of him making endless ‘hilarious’ football references. Instead it’s Mark Goodier who I don’t think has ever even attempted to make a funny quip in his life. Looking at the running order for this show, it’s pretty underwhelming I have to say. So underwhelming that to try and big it up, Goodier announces as a future ‘highlight’ that Status Quo will be making their 100th appearance on the show. TOTP seemed to have a weakness for and reliance on The Quo when it came to creating a buzz about the show. In the first show of the ‘year zero’ revamp, they had them on to perform “Let’s Work Together” as a track from their latest album which seemed counter productive to an attempt to relaunch the show for a younger audience. That tie between the BBC and the band was severed though in 1996 when Radio 1 blacklisted their single “Fun Fun Fun” (a collaboration with The Beach Boys) on the grounds that they were repositioning themselves as a youth station and Status Quo were…well, no longer the status quo. The band took it badly and launched an unsuccessful legal action for a judicial review of the ban on their records. In 1994 though, they were still seen as a draw by the Beeb and they’ll be along soon enough.

If Messrs Rossi, Parfitt et al would find themselves in a metaphorical boxing ring with Radio 1, we start the show in an actual boxing ring as Maxx have decided to perform their new single in one. The follow up to No 4 hit “Get-A-Way”, “No More (I Can’t Stand It)” was more of the same, in other words a huge steaming pile of Eurodance dung. Has there ever been a more apt song title? So why the boxing ring? I’ve no idea but the track certainly doesn’t deliver a knockout punch. As it’s nearly 30 years ago, there’s still some sexual stereotyping going on with the boxers being men and the women on stage (apart from singer Linda Meek) are styled as ring girls announcing what round it is. Actually, is that still how it works in 2023? I know that the profile of women boxing is much higher these days but are ring girls still a thing? I’m not a big fight fan. Definitely still a thing are Maxx who reactivated in 2016 after initially folding in 1995, although Linda Meek now goes by the name of Elyse G Rogers and rapper Gary Bokoe has been replaced by someone called Twitch.

Right, I’m calling it. This must be the very last appearance on TOTP by Level 42. Not only is “Love In A Peaceful World” their very last UK Top 40 hit (it made No 31) but the band broke up in the October of this year and didn’t reform until the new millennium and didn’t release any new material until September 2006, two months after the last ever TOTP aired. I think that’s a cast-iron defence of my opening statement. Despite metamorphosing from Britfunk pioneers into a mega-hit making machine, the band have often been pigeonholed as vapid and bland. I have to admit to liking a handful of their songs – “Hot Water” is a great track – but I’ve never been tempted to actually buy any of their stuff.

Looking at their career in terms of a story arc though, a decent documentary could be made of it. A group of friends from the Isle of Wight relocate to the big smoke where one of them learns the bass and becomes one of the world’s most renowned bass guitarists. They start playing a brand of jazz funk fusion attracting record company interest before a change of musical direction towards pop brings huge mainstream success. Alas, the march of time catches up with them and they find themselves marginalised in the musical landscape. Add to that relationship breakdowns within the band causing line up changes (over 20 people have been band members at some point over the years) and finally tragedy with a founding member committing suicide and it’s quite a tale.

As a valedictory single, “Love In A Peaceful World” isn’t the worst way to bow out. A pleasant tune with an admirable message, I could imagine it being used in a rom com film to great effect. Sadly, and as an indication of where the band were, it only got to No 31. They remain, however, active within and a big draw of the live circuit.

https://youtu.be/vk2v6F7i_Gw

Right who’s next? Ce Ce Peniston with a song that isn’t “Finally”? Eh? Yes, well she did have more than the one hit – in fact, she had seven of which “Hit By Love” was the sixth. I think most of us would struggle to name more than “Finally” though wouldn’t we? What? “We Got A Love Thang”? Oh yeah. It made the Top 10. Surely no more than that though? Sorry? “Somebody Else’s Guy”? That’s Jocelyn Brown’s big hit! Say again? Ce Ce Peniston had equally as big a hit with it in 1997 to promote her Best Of album? Oh come on! Nobody associates that song with her! “Hit By Love” sounds like a rewrite of “Finally” to me, trying to recreate that winning formula but not quite getting there. A bit like in Breaking Bad when Todd takes over the production of the blue crystal meth and can’t get the content as pure as Walter White. Erm…anyway, Ce Ce doesn’t need a methamphetamine hit as she is high on love according to her song but the biggest chart high she could achieve with it was No 33. Unlike Roxy Music, love was not the drug for her.

And so to Status Quo who are in the studio for the 100th time with a little ditty called “I Didn’t Mean It”. I don’t remember this one at all and have to admit that my expectations for it were low. It was the lead single from their 21st studio album “Thirsty Work” and was written by one John David, a Welsh producer, songwriter and musician who had performed with some big names like Springsteen, Clapton and Sting and written for the likes of Cliff Richard, Shakin’ Stevens, Alvin Stardust and Samantha Fox. Hmm. I’m noticing a slight disparity between the calibre of artists he performed with and those he wrote for but never mind. He also worked with Dave Edmunds which is not surprising as “I Didn’t Mean It” has a flavour of Edmunds about it or maybe Nick Lowe with some honky tonk piano to the fore. Now I like both Edmunds and Lowe so I’m probably doing them a disservice by associating them with this track which isn’t really worthy of their name. It’s all very predictable and what I would have expected Status Quo to have been churning out at this time. It seems very anachronistic compared to their chart peers at the time. Maybe they should have seen the BBC bust up writing on the wall.

The cover of the single is more interesting than the song with images of famous people that maybe had regrets about what they had done (I didn’t mean it -geddit?) so there’s Ken Dodd (tax evasion court case – acquitted) Diego Maradona (‘Hand of God’ goal – cheated ) Lester Piggott (tax fraud case – guilty), Richard Nixon (Watergate scandal – resigned) Robert Maxwell (Mirror Group Pension Fund scandal – fraudulent misappropriation), Mike Tyson (rape conviction – guilty) Graham Taylor (failed to get England to World Cup in USA) and Ben Johnson (disqualified for doping in 1988 Olympics and stripped of gold medal). The inclusion of some of those names seems a little ill judged, especially Mike Tyson and Robert Maxwell given the damage they did to people’s lives. Sadly for Status Quo, Radio 1 did mean it when it came to not playing their records any more when 1996 rolled around.

Another diminutive dance diva who’s probably best known for just one song next. After Ce Ce Peniston earlier comes Rozalla who is surely best known for her “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)” hit from 1991 but who was still knocking about the charts three years later with this track “This Time I Found Love”, the second single from her “Look No Further” album. I haven’t got that much to say about this one – not really my bag but I will comment on the solo male dancer up there with Rozalla. I’m not sure that he really adds anything to the performance with his Marcel Marceau routine. In short, he looks like a prat. While we’re at it, did the two keyboard players need to be there either? Couldn’t Rozalla have just done her turn on her own? Maybe some rules about musician unions were at play. “This Time I Found Love” peaked at No 33.

What the hell are Whitesnake doing on TOTP in 1994 with a song from 1987?! It’s no great mystery really. “Is This Love” was rereleased to promote a Greatest Hits album that was presumably to plug a gap in the band’s career – they hadn’t had a studio album out since 1989. The Greatest Hits package was a reasonable success peaking at No 4 and going gold in the UK. It essentially covered their final three albums of the 80s but curiously didn’t include the two singles from 1984’s “Slide It In” that were actual UK Top 40 hits – “Guilty Of Love” and “Give Me More Time” though the former did feature in a 2022 reissue of the album.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – the intro to “Is This Love” always catches me out as it sounds like the start of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer”. That slowly rising synth fade in is almost exactly the same in both. The 1994 rerelease of “Is This Love” made No 25 (it peaked at No 9 in 1987) and was Whitesnake’s final UK Top 40 entry. Oh, one final thing, why isn’t there a question mark at the end of the song title? Bugs the hell out of me!

It’s PJ & Duncan next with “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble”. Although this is probably their most well known tune, the duo clocked up an impressive thirteen Top 40 hits in the UK before the end of the 90s with eleven of them peaking between Nos 16 and 10. The last four were released under the names Ant & Dec. They would return to the charts twice more, once in 2002 with the official England World Cup song “We’re On The Ball” (No 3) and again in 2013 when “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble” was rereleased and went to No 1 with sales being donated to the charity ChildLine.

Of course, these two weren’t the only pop band to come out of the children’s TV series Byker Grove. There was also Byker Groove (clever) featuring Donna Air, Jayni Hoy and Vicky Taylor who got to No 48 with “Love Your Sexy…!!”. Two years later, they returned without Taylor and rebranded as Crush with the single “Jellyhead” which should have been a huge hit but which stalled at No 50. With its name checks for Bros and The Prodigy in its lyrics, it’s what The Reynolds Girls should have sounded like and perhaps what Girls Aloud would go on to sound like. It did well in America where it was promoted without any reference to their acting past. Donna Air would go on to have a career as an actor and TV presenter but you’d have to say that she didn’t quite scale the same heights of fame as her two Byker Grove chums.

Finally a record of interest. Even if you didn’t appreciate it sonically, you could hardly ignore this single, probably because you couldn’t avoid it – “7 Seconds” by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry was the second most played song on UK radio in 1994. The very definition of a sleeper hit, it took nine weeks to break into the Top 10 before rising to a peak of No 3. Such a chart trajectory was unusual around this time and would become almost unheard of as the 90s progressed and record companies discovered heavy discounting of singles in their first week of release to create high chart entry positions. Yet there was something about the summer of 1994 which saw a swathe of records that had incredibly long stays within the Top 40. I’m thinking “Crazy For You” by Let Loose, “I Swear” by All 4 One and of course Wet Wet Wet’s 15 weeks chart topper “Love Is All Around”.

Whilst all of the above though were propelled by a traditional momentum (a classic piece of airplay friendly pop, a big swoonsome ballad and a cover version of a well known song given huge exposure by a runaway box office hit film), “7 Seconds” was different. For a start, the artists involved were not chart guarantors by any stretch of the imagination. Youssou N’Dour was a huge name in World music but had never had a hit single before (his collaboration with Peter Gabriel on “Shakin’ The Tree” was the closest he had ever come). Meanwhile, Neneh Cherry was a long way from the huge breakthrough star she had been in 1989 when the likes of “Buffalo Stance” and “Manchild” were huge Top 5 hits. Her second album “Homebrew” had not done anywhere near the numbers of her debut “Raw Like Sushi” and had provided just two minor hit singles. The combination of the two of them on a track seemed an unlikely proposition for huge chart success. And yet…there was something about this haunting, rich synth heavy ballad that was sung in three different languages that gave it global appeal. A huge hit around Europe (it was No 1 in France for 16 weeks – have that Marti Pellow!), it was a monster both on the airwaves and the cash registers. Youssou would never have another UK hit single whilst Neneh would score a No 1 with “Love Can Build A Bridge” in 1995 as part of the charity collective for Comic Relief and a Top 10 single in “Woman” the following year.

It’s week 10 for Wet Wet Wet and “Love Is All Around” which means we are two thirds through their reign at the top. I struggled to say anything else about this record in the last post and things haven’t improved since. I’ve got some things to say about its demise but I need to keep those back for use in a few posts time. OK, how about addressing one of the record’s most distinctive bits, the guttural sound that Marti Pellow makes as the song heads into its climax. I think he growls “yeah!” and it sounds like that on the version that was released but I’m sure in some of the performances we’ve seen on the show over the weeks it sounds more like a “hey!”.

Whatever. It did get me thinking about songs with grunts, growls, screams or generally unusual vocal noises in them. First to come to mind was the “Ohhh!” by John Travolta in “Summer Nights” quickly followed by the “Ooo!” by Lionel Richie in “Easy” by The Commodores. Then there’s Paul McCartney’s strangled yelp in “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” and who could ignore Robert Plant at the start of “Immigrant Song”? think my favourite though comes at 1:43 in this clip…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Maxx	“No More (I Can’t Stand It)”	I couldn’t have said it better myself
2	Level 42	Love In A Peaceful World	Nope
3	Ce Ce Peniston	Hit By Love	No
4	Status Quo	I Didn’t Mean It	As if
5	Rozalla	This Time I Found Love	Negative
6	Whitesnake	Is This Love	Not in 1987 nor 1994
7	PJ & Duncan	Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble	Nah
8	Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry	7 Seconds	I did not
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ldnz/top-of-the-pops-04081994

TOTP 28 JUL 1994

Posted on May 3, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s back to the regular presenters this week after the distraction of Julian Clary last time out and it’s the revitalised Bruno Brookes in the chair who I’m starting to have a sneaking regard for second time around. I couldn’t stand the bloke in the 80s but 90s Bruno seems more likeable somehow. Maybe it’s just that he isn’t Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo who has been more irritating than dandruff in these TOTP repeats. Maybe I should take the advice of that Hammerstein and Rodgers tune and “Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair”. Well, I’ve got just the thing in the first act on tonight – it’s Shampoo! Don’t worry, I’ll be getting me coat later.

Anyway, I said in the last post I’d take a deeper dive into the story of Jacqui Blake and Carrie Askew so here goes…Like most of us I’m guessing, I wasn’t aware of Shampoo until this hit “Trouble” made the charts but they had already released two singles before that which had received encouraging reviews in the music press but didn’t…ahem…’trouble’ the chart compilers. I found them both on YouTube (they don’t seem to be on Spotify) and they’re definitely spiky of attitude but low on production values. Wikipedia describes them as being typical of the ‘riot grrrl’ movement – I’m not sure I know enough about that particular subculture to make any judgement on that statement but I always thought that bands associated with that scene were a bit more hardcore than our two girls from Plumstead.

Regardless, “Blisters And Bruises” and “Bouffant Headbutt” brought them to the attention of Blur’s record label Food and resulted in the release of the much more radio friendly “Trouble”. The tale of two party girls who’d stayed out too late and missed the night bus home, it was, depending on your point of view, a breath of fresh air to liven up a stagnant chart or just plain dumb. I think I was in the former camp. On reflection though, hadn’t we seen this all before. Whilst there were comparisons made with the bubblegum rock of Transvision Vamp and even the post-punk of The Slits, the most glaringly obvious example was Fuzzbox. An all-girl band with a punk look who released some edgy material on an independent label before being picked up by a major who polished up their sound, image and even their name and turning them into bona fide pop stars. It’s a valid comparison I think.

“Trouble” would rise to No 11 and saw Jacqui and Carrie on the front cover of Smash Hits. Somehow they seemed to have successfully trodden a path between credibility and commerciality. An album (“We Are Shampoo”) duly followed but that’s where the spell appeared to break. Despite doing well in Japan, it stiffed in the UK only making No 45 on the charts. It did furnish two more minor hit singles but “Trouble” would be their defining song, its profile raised by being included on the soundtrack to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers film causing the single to be re-released in 1995 (it made No 36).

Jacqui and Carrie do a pretty good job of selling the song in this performance with the former pioneering the schoolgirl look well before Britney Spears came along. I watched this TOTP with my wife in the room and she said “Trouble” sounded like something from Horrid Henry. She might have a point.

It’s those EYC berks again next. How was it possible that these US boy band lightweights managed to get six UK Top 40 hits? I’ll tell you how – because the charts were completely bonkers when it came to any sort of identity. Just in this week alone you had the following artists all rubbing shoulders with each other:

The Prodigy
Mariah Carey
Michael Ball
PJ & Duncan
Galliano
The Three Tenors
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Kate Bush and Larry Adler

Pick the bones out of that lot! Not included on that list were our own boy bands in the shape of Take That and Bad Boys Inc which you might have thought fulfilled the boy band quota for one week but no, there was still room for one more and so EYC gladly took that spot. “Black Book” was the fourth of those aforementioned six hits and also the biggest when it peaked at No 13. EYC stood for ‘Express Yourself Clearly’ but with this track, they expressed themselves as clearly wanting to sound like Michael Jackson. Actually, let me express myself more clearly – a third rate, piss poor Michael Jackson impersonator more like. It’s bad to quote the King of Pop himself.

Not this lot again! The problem with having a stagnant chart with lots of records hanging around for ages was that it meant they warranted multiple repeat appearances on TOTP. How many times is this for All 4 One now? Three? Four? They’re showing that live by satellite performance of them walking along the beach while singing “I Swear” this week. The track stayed at No 2 for seven consecutive weeks and would end the year as the UK’s fifth best selling single outperforming a host of No 1 records by the likes of Mariah Carey, Tony Di Bart, Take That and Prince.

The track was originally recorded by country singer Jon Michael Montgomery and it actually makes more sense when done in that style to me. More of a solid song somehow as opposed to the drippy, harmonies-fest that All 4 One turn it into.

And here’s another of those songs that hung around the charts like a particularly eggy fart. Just like All 4 One before them, this must be the third or fourth time on the show for Let Loose. Also just like All 4 One, their single (“Crazy For You”) would end up in the Top 10 of the best selling singles in the UK for 1994 despite never getting to No 1 clocking in at No 8. Their guitarist seemed to still have Chesney Hawkes hair three years on. Even Chezza had given it up as a bad idea by then. Meanwhile, the drummer seemed intent on showing the watching millions that he really had perfected that trick of twirling one drumstick in the air whilst carrying on playing. And the lead singer? He looks like that annoying best looking guy at school who always had girls flirting with him whilst the rest of us spotty herberts looked on enviously. Git.

https://youtu.be/ZVkrduKT61w

If it’s 1994 (or indeed 1993), there must be at least one reggae-infused song on the show every week (I think it was the law) so here’s one we haven’t seen before. “Compliments On Your Kiss” by Red Dragon with Brian and Tony Gold was a mouthful to say but it didn’t stop punters going up to the counter of their record shop of choice and asking for it as it would sell enough copies to go all the way to No 2.

So who were these hitmakers? Well, Red Dragon was Leroy May, a Jamaican DJ who played with a number of sound systems and recorded for King Tubby in the 80s before founding his own label and moving into production. As the 90s rolled around, he returned to recording and collaborated with Sly and Robbie who co-wrote and produced “Compliments On Your Kiss”. As for Brian and Tony Gold, they weren’t actually brothers (real names Brian Thompson and Tony Morrison) who had been working together since competing in Jamaican talent contests in the mid 80s.

Enough of their biographies though, what about the song? Well, on reflection, it sounds like it belongs to another era altogether with its gentle, lilting melody…until Mr Red Dragon himself (I’m assuming that’s him up there on stage) starts toasting and drags it into the 90s. He bangs on about some woman having a sexy body and driving him crazy (how predictable) and even gets in that “number one girl in the world” line that was so prevalent around this time. For some reason it reminds me of that song “Hello Darling” by Tippa Irie from the 80s. Similar vibe. Leroy May died in 2015 aged just 49. “Compliments On Your Kiss” was his only UK chart hit.

It’s The Three Tenors time again who are in the charts with the double A-side single “Libiamo / La Donna E Mobile”. This was of course José Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti but it always seemed that the former two were in the latter’s shadow (no size jokes please). Even Bruno Brookes refers to them as Pavarotti and pals. I guess he was a dominating figure with his frame and beard but I wonder if ‘the other two’ ever felt slighted? They look like they’re all getting on in this performance taken from the 1994 World Cup concert and was that French actor Alain Delon that the camera picks out in the audience at one point?

Oh, what a surprise a reggae/pop crossover song. After Red Dragon earlier, here’s another one from China Black. Maybe it was a legal requirement back then! Is it just me or does “Searching” sound a bit like “Don’t Turn Around” by Aswad and a cover of which was back in the charts at this time courtesy of Ace Of Base? Anyway, as the TOTP caption says, Errol was still working as a town planner while “Searching” was in the charts which got me thinking about how many other pop stars were still holding down ‘normal’ jobs simultaneously? It’s quite a hard category to pin down. There’s plenty of pop stars who had regular jobs before they were famous and also a big list of ex-chart acts who went onto to more mundane careers after the hits dried up but actually holding down a 9-5er whilst in the charts at the same time? Not so easy. One I do know of though is Haircut 100 percussionist Marc Fox who was still working as a German teacher whilst playing with the band and left some exam papers on a British Midland plane whilst flying back from a gig in Scotland.

Which duo’s had more Top 10 hits than The Everly Brothers and Pet Shop Boys? Well, Erasure according to Bruno Brookes in his intro. Was that true? Let’s do a quick bit of counting…

*Checks discographies*

No it bloody isn’t by my adding up! “Run To The Sun” was Erasure’s 14th Top 10 hit up to this point in time. The Everly Brothers had 13 but Pet Shop Boys had 15 – that’s if we’re going on UK Top 10 singles (I haven’t counted hits in every country). I hate it when the TOTP presenters make claims that are best disputed and worst just wrong. As for the song itself, I’d lost touch with Erasure by 1994 and don’t remember this one at all. but then it’s not that memorable. All a bit basic and too linear. All the typical Erasure components are there but it was starting to sound a bit too familiar by then – to me anyway. Sorry guys.

https://youtu.be/aSsj-nYxHUA

It’s nine weeks at No 1 for Wet Wet Wet and “Love Is All Around”. I’m nearly out of things to say and there’s another six weeks to go after this!

OK, how about a reference to the version that appears in Love Actually courtesy of Billy Nighy. What was Richard Curtis thinking?! Well, presumably he thought it worked for me in Four Weddings And A Funeral so I’ll just use it again except this time, as it’s a festive film, I’ll add the word ‘Christmas’ into it. Correct me if I’m wrong but plot wise, isn’t it meant to be an awful rendition of the song and therefore, the fact that it ends up as the Christmas No 1 is a comment on the nation’s bizarre buying habits come December? Mr. Blobby anyone? In that case, why was it released as an actual single in the real world? Was it to construct a perfect example of life imitating art as it did when the single made the Top 30? Or was it just an observation that the good old British public would buy any old shite if it meant getting to see some bloke waving his dick about on telly? For those who haven’t seen the film and who are confused by that last comment, the Bill Nighy character Billy Mack is a fading rock ‘n’ roll star who tries to revive his career with a Christmas record and promises in an interview with Michael Parkinson that if it gets to No 1, he’ll go naked on TV. And that’s me done for this week’s instalment of ‘Finding something to say about Love Is All Around’. Join me next week where I’ll cobble together some more…well…cobblers to say about it.

As has been the case most weeks, it seems head TOTP producer Ric Blaxill was still struggling to know what to do with the play out song section of the show as he searched for a permanent identity for it. He’d already tried showcasing newly released singles that would ultimately end up not making the Top 40 and also doing away with the section altogether by just letting the No 1 play over the credits. This week was another new idea as we got a track from an album that wasn’t released as a single. The album was “The Glory Of Gershwin” which was a tribute album featuring various artists to celebrate the 80th birthday of American harmonica player Larry Adler who was a lifelong friend of George and Ira Gershwin. The album was a massive seller going to No 2 in the charts and included contributions from perhaps what could be described as the usual suspects like Sting, Elton John and the aforementioned Kate Bush whose take on “The Man I Love” was released as a single. However, that isn’t the track that TOTP chose to go with. No, that honour went to “I Got Rhythm” by Robert Palmer even though it was never released as a single. I think Blaxill must have been a bit of a Robert fan as the super smooth singer was on the show earlier in the year with “Girl U Want” which only got as far as No 57. No complaints from me as I like a bit of Palmer now and then but his inclusion here doesn’t seem to help establish the identity of the show.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Shampoo	Trouble	No
2	EYC	Black book	As if
3	All 4 One	I Swear	Nope
4	Let Loose	Crazy For You	No but my wife did
5	Red Dragon with Brian and Tony Gold	Compliments On Your Kiss	I did not
6	The Three Tenors	Libiamo / La Donna E Mobile	Negative
7	China Black	Searching	Nah
8	Erasure	Run To The Sun	It’s a no from me
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	Didn’t happen
10	Robert Palmer	I Got Rhythm	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001l56l/top-of-the-pops-28071994

TOTP 21 JUL 1994

Posted on April 29, 2023 by 80stastic

After one ‘Julian C’ on the show last week in the form of Julian Cope, we have another tonight as Julian Clary takes on the role of presenter. Now, I’m wondering if this was quite the controversial choice on behalf of head producer Ric Blaxill as just seven months before, Clary had caused a furore at the British Comedy Awards when he had compared the set to Hampstead Heath and joked that he’d just been fisting former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont backstage. The uproarious audience reaction meant that his punchline “Talk about a red box!” went largely unnoticed. However, the damage had been done for The Daily Mail and The Sun who campaigned to have Julian banned from TV. Haven’t moved on much in 30 years have we?

Anyway, was seven months a big enough time gap for all that media outrage to have died down? Ric Blaxill must have been hoping that the public were at the stage where the opportunity for offence had dissipated but the potential for a return to the public consciousness moments of “did you see that on TOTP last night?” was still very much alive. I’m thinking the debut of Boy George on the show in 1982 or Nirvana in 1991. Julian was, no doubt, a big name by 1994 and not just because of his Lamont moment. I think I was first aware of him (and Fanny the Wonder Dog) in the 80s on Friday Night Live and then his game show Sticky Moments With Julian Clary. He’d even released a single in 1988 – a cover of “Leader Of The Pack” under the name of The Joan Collins Fanclub. I wonder if Julian’s turn on tonight’s show would have caused a bulging Points Of View post bag or not?

Well, Julian has certainly come dressed for the occasion in leopard print cat suit and a feather boa accessory and he gets us raving (his word) straight away with Clubhouse and “Living In The Sunshine”. Bizarrely, despite working in record shops whilst these Italian house merchants were having a couple of hits in 1994, the only single of theirs I can remember is their Steely Dan / Michael Jackson mash up “Do It Again” from a decade earlier. There’s a scientific term for this phenomenon which is the ‘reminiscence bump’ – people tend to disproportionately recall memories from when they were aged 10 to 30. Well, I was 26 in 1994 and 15 in 1983 so does that prove the theory or not? Maybe 30 is pushing it a bit. Maybe 10-21 is more like it? Or maybe I don’t recall “Living In The Sunshine” because it’s utterly forgettable crap? The only notable thing about this performance is the Punch and Judy show. Not sure that would be allowed these days or are they just dancing together in which case maybe it would? Is this is the one and only case of a Punch and Judy prop being used on the show? I think there’s one in the video for “Look Of Love” by ABC and Mud had that ventriloquist dummy for “Lonely Thus Christmas” didn’t they but not a Punch and Judy. Even Marillion didn’t gave that and they had a song called “Punch and Judy”!

Julian is getting into his stride now (literally) as he walks across the stage in front of the next artist whilst they have already started their song, salaciously referring to testosterone and pectorals but then it is a boy band he’s talking about and as he says, “what else is there?”. Bad Boys Inc were onto their fifth of six hit singles by this point and this one – “Take Me Away (I’ll Follow You)” – would prove to be their second biggest when it peaked at No 15. Dearie me though, this was so depressingly average, even by boy band standards. They really were the dregs of that particular genre and that’s allowing for the fact that the 90s were full of sub par, wannabe hopefuls looking to be the next Take That. The song is so piss weak and sounds like it was written in about the same amount of time it’s taken Julian Clary to get his make up touched up which we playfully get to see whilst Bad Boys Inc are on stage. Apparently Bad Boy Ally Begg (the one in the white long sleeved shirt) went onto become a sports TV presenter and doesn’t really like to talk about his time as a boy band member – his website glosses over that period of his life saying if you want to know about it then just Google Bad Boys Inc. He’s right to be ashamed.

https://youtu.be/DfibBB5ebak

Oh god! This is yet another song that takes me right back to the Summer of 1994 when I was selling loads of it during an unhappy stint working at the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester. Even just seeing the single’s cover in its Wikipedia entry is giving me the fear. “Regulate” by Warren G and Nate Dogg spent eight consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 peaking at No 5 and was taken from the soundtrack to the film Above The Rim. Part of the emerging West Coast G-funk scene, Warren G hung with his hounds Snoop Doggy Dogg and Nate Dogg and was also the half brother of Dr. Dre so I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that he would bag himself an enormous hit before too long. What was a surprise though, given all those rap connections, was that his hit was predominantly based around a classic soft rock track. “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)” had been a No 4 US hit for yacht rocker Michael McDonald in 1982 (not that anyone was using that term back then) but somehow it was able to be recycled for a classic gangsta funk track. Just to make it stand out even more, its intro samples some dialogue from the 1988 film Young Guns, specifically around the Lincoln County Regulators, a deputised posse that fought in the Lincoln County War in the late 19th century and from which the track took its name. The video shown here includes clips from Above The Rim which featured Tupac Shakur just to up the content on the rapper-o-meter for this track as if it needed any more.

“Regulate” was a smash all around the globe leading to Warren G cranking out another five hits in the UK alone including a couple of No 2s before the decade was out. He missed a trick though by not forming a supergroup called G-Force alongside Ali G, Kenny G and Stevie G.

As announced at the top of the show by the lead singer in that direct to camera slot, The Grid are back on the show for a third time I believe with their mega hit “Swamp Thing” As with their previous appearances, they’re doing exactly the same performance with the banjo player stuck under a space age hairdryer or something. They could have thought of a different staging for a third appearance couldn’t they?

https://youtu.be/qEV4q3n91yc

Some 29 years on from this huge track, another dance phenomenon has entered social parlance but this time around it’s not The Grid but ‘The Griddy’*

*With thanks to my teenage son for alerting me to this.

The profusion of reggae fusion chart hits that started in 1993 with the likes of Shaggy and Bitty McLean was still going strong over 12 months later. One of its least worthy proponents was this guy – C. J. Lewis – who’d already had success with his No 3 cover of “Sweets For My Sweet” some months earlier and now he was at it again by desecrating the classic Stevie Wonder song “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”.

C.J. (real name Stephen James Lewis so shouldn’t that be S. J. Lewis?) tries to make the song his own (to quote Louis Walsh) by reordering the words in the title to read “Everything Is Alright (Uptight)”. Yeah, that’s worked a treat mate. This is just a horrible abomination. C.J. spends most of his time toasting “Ribidibidoo-badey” to a bemused looking studio audience who shuffle about pretending to dance for the duration of the song. Compare it with this TOTP performance of the original by Stevie and…well, there is no comparison.

Two years on from this, the song was in the news again when Oasis recorded “Step Out” and were asked for 6% royalties by Wonder due to its similarities to “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”. The Manc lads didn’t want to do that so removed it from the track listing for their second album “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?”. When it did appear as an extra track on the “Don’t Look Back In Anger” single, it included a credit for Wonder alongside co-songwriters Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby.

I think Julian Clary has kept it the right side of respectable so far given the restrictions of the 9 o’clock watershed but he can’t help himself when doing the link to The B–52’s and their “(Meet) The Flintstones” single banging on about sniffing loincloths and having a gay old time. Well, I guess that was what he was invited on for. A second Flintstones film came out in 2000 called The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas but none of the stars of the 1994 original reprised their roles. The brand new cast couldn’t replicate the success of its predecessor and it completely bombed at the box office. In a nice (if tenuous) little connection to this edition of TOTP, the second film featured Joan Collins in the supporting cast. Joan Collins? Julian Clary? The Joan Collins Fan Club? Oh, please yourselves!

It’s time for some rockin’ next courtesy of Skin. What was it with all these British rock bands of the 90s that they all wanted to be the next Led Zeppelin? That certainly seemed to be the case with the lead singers who were all intent on doing their best Robert Plant impression (I’m ignoring Julian’s comment about all that hair in show making them look like Tammy Wynette!). “Tower Of Strength” was the band’s second Top 40 entry of the year following “The Money EP”, it was also the second hit in 1994 to have the title “Tower Of Strength”. The first had been the rerelease of The Mission’s single that had originally been a No 12 hit in 1988. It made No 33 the second time around.

It got me thinking about the phrase and its origins which are religious in nature with it usually being reserved for God in the Bible. Its usage changed to referring to religious faith in general when Tennyson used the phrase to compare the Duke of Wellington to God. However, it was Shakespeare who changed its meaning to the one we understand today when he used it in Richard III. Blimey! Bit of culture there! Musically, there have been two other chart entries of a song called “Tower Of Strength” and both were in the charts at the same time in late 1961 so I’m guessing they were different versions of the same song – one by somebody called Gene McDaniels but by far the bigger hit was by Frankie Vaughan who went all the way to No 1. As for Skin, it sounds to me like they’ve pinched the melody from “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers which I suppose makes some sort of sense. “Tower Of Strength”? “Lean On Me”? Same sort of thing isn’t it? Oh please yourselves (again)!

Before Ant and Dec were the TV behemoths that we know today, they were of course PJ & Duncan, characters from BBC teen drama Byker Grove who went on to be actual pop stars after performing as the fictional band Grove Matrix in the show. It was almost Monkees-esque. The song they performed in the show was called “Tonight I’m Free” and was the duo’s first actual single release in 1993 but it failed to chart. Second single “Why Me?” did crack the Top 40 but it was third single “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble” that will always be what people remember about their career as pop stars. Ridiculous and, indeed ridiculed, it was also catchy as hell based around the catchphrase of US boxing and wrestling ring announcer Michael’s Buffer. The addition of the ‘h’ in ‘Rhumble’ was to avoid copyright issues as Buffer had trademarked the phrase. The lyric “Watch us wreck the mike PSYCHE!” far outlives anything else they released and they released a lot of stuff – three studio albums and fifteen singles! There’s also a line that gave a big indication as to their future careers though we couldn’t possibly have known at the time. “I’m Ant (I’m Declan), a duo, a twosome” they…erm…rap? They would eventually rebrand themselves as Ant & Dec whilst still recording music (specifically thejr third album – “The Cult Of Ant & Dec”) before giving it up in 1997.

There were two different versions of the CD single so to differentiate between them in the Piccadilly Our Price, the singles buyer wrote on the masterbags “Twat” (Dec/ Duncan) and “Twat in a hat” (Ant / PJ). When I got transferred to the Our Price in Stockport in the new year, it turned out that the album the staff had played most on the shop stereo had been PJ & Duncan’s “Psyche” and that their favourite track was one called “She Scores A Perfect Ten”. Want to hear it? Sure you do…

Hmm. It’s got a bit of an East 17 “Deep” vibe so better than I would have expected. Also better than expected are the lads moves in this TOTP performance – talk about in sync! PSYCHE!

We’ve reached eight weeks at the top for Wet Wet Wet with “Love Is All Around”. By this point they had drawn level with Shakespear’s Sister and The Archies in terms of length of time as the UK No 1 knowing that one more would see them replicate Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Wings and John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. The sixteen weeks of Bryan Adams was still a way off though. Were we thinking it could be challenged at this point or did we believe that common sense must kick in soon?

The play out song is “Trouble” by Shampoo. Now they might seem like a small footnote in the history of pop music and they may have only had five Top 40 hits none of which got higher than No 11 and their four albums didn’t sell anywhere except Japan but…there is still so much love for this pair online and I know people who swear by them.

Jacqui Blake and Carrie Askew were school friends from Plumstead, London who ran a fanzine for Manic Street Preachers and somehow became pop stars themselves. The TOTP producers managed to get them as the last act on this show but the first on the next so I’ll keep my powder (and hair) dry for the moment before delving into the Shampoo story in the next post.

https://youtu.be/gLDcC2JJKKw

So how did Julian Clary do as host? I think he brought something different to the show and I liked how he shook up the presenting format with his walks across stage and shots of him ‘dancing’ and the pretence of him having his make up retouched mid song. However, it all seemed a bit tame on reflection. I guess he was never going to do a Norman Lamont pre watershed though.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Clubhouse	Living In The Sunshine	No
2	Bad Boys Inc	Take Me Away (I’ll Follow You)	As if
3	Warren G and Nate Dogg	Regulate	I did not
4	The Grid	Swamp Thing	It’s a no from me
5	C. J. Lewis	Everything Is Alright (Uptight)	Never
6	The B-52’s	(Meet) The Flintstones	Nope
7	Skin	Tower Of Strength	Nah
8	PJ and Duncan	Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble	Negative
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	Didn’t happen
10	Shampoo	Trouble	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001l56h/top-of-the-pops-21071994

TOTP 14 JUL 1994

Posted on April 26, 2023 by 80stastic

Following this TOTP, the BBC broadcast the 1000th episode of EastEnders. Earlier in the day they aired the 2000th edition of Neighbours. It was quite a day of milestones at the Beeb. I’m not sure what number of TOTP shows we were up to here but it was north of 1,500 as that particular landmark occurred in the Autumn of 1992. What I do know is that the presenter is that berk Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo again. In the dark corners of my mind dwelled this feeling that I once knew someone who was friendly with Mayo so I checked with my wife and she explained that one of her ex-work colleagues did indeed have a friend who knew him. It turns out she even went to his wedding and get this – there was some sort of two tier system for guests; one for celebrities and one for regular folk so that the former wouldn’t get bothered by the latter! Dear oh dear.

Anyway, I’m afraid he’s back again tonight and according to some comments on Twitter, in an edgy mood. Heaven help us! The running order for this edition is a bit out there I have to say and not what I would have expected in the Summer of 1994. It starts with a band that were certainly uncompromising and making an unlikely return to the UK charts for the first time in nine years. This was actually the second TOTP appearance of 1994 for Killing Joke following one for their single “Millennium” a few weeks earlier. The follow up was “Pandemonium” (confusingly known as “The Pandemonium Single on the cover of the sleeve). I don’t recall this at all but it’s better than I was expecting, full of crashing, crunching metal guitars and a memorable chorus. Jaz Coleman’s delivery in the verses puts me in mind of Ian Dury (no bad thing in my book) and, of course, his full repertoire of disturbing facial expressions and bulging eyeballs are to the fore. He really could have had a side career as the go to actor for playing vampires. What’s that? He played a fictional version of himself in a 2002 mockumentary film called Rok ďábla (Year Of The Devil)? Well, there you go then. “Pandemonium” made No 28 in our charts.

Mayo goes all Ben Elton in his next segue with a little bit of politics mentioning the Labour leadership contest by referring to Tony Blair, John Prescott and Margaret Beckett as the “the short one, the fat one and the tall one”. Simon, of course, is the hilarious one (but only in his mind). Back to the music though and the next artist on the show are a band I don’t remember at all maybe because they only had one hit. Unlike their contemporaries SWV, Jade and En Vogue, BlackGirl only troubled the UK chart compilers once with this single “90’s Girl”. It doesn’t really do anything for me but I’m sure it’s a very competent example of the genre.

https://youtu.be/AM2RDt3g-JY

Not competent though is Simon Mayo’s comments about the silhouette figures on the backdrop scenery behind BlackGirl. Blake’s 7 extras? Surely they’re more reminiscent of the titles to Tales Of The Unexpected?

Right, why is this on again? Surely Mariah Carey’s single “Anytime You Need A Friend” peaked a few weeks ago? A quick check of the official charts database shows that it did indeed reach its chart high of No 8 a few shows back and had dropped down the charts on two consecutive occasions since. However, a climb of just one place from No 22 to No 21 this week was enough cause for TOTP producer Ric Blaxill to have it back on the show. It seems a bit of a flimsy reason to me. Weren’t there any other records climbing the Top 40 that week that could have had that slot? Helpfully, Mariah’s video is used to soundtrack the chart countdown from 40 to 11 so let’s have a quick gander and check…

Well, there were a lot of singles going down the charts but there were either climbers or new entries from the likes of Diana Ross, DJ Duke and Crash Test Dummies – wouldn’t one have them done (especially the latter who were following up on a huge hit single in “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm”)?

OK. This appearance is deserved as it’s a new entry at No 17 for a new artist. “Searching” by China Black was yet another of those Summer of 1994 songs that hung around the charts for ages. Thirteen weeks in the Top 40 of which seven were in the Top 10, it certainly had legs. The single was actually a rerelease. It originally came out in 1992 on independent label Big One and although it topped the reggae charts, it failed to crossover into the mainstream, not being helped by the label going bust. Interest in the track remained though and it was picked up by major Polydor and put out again but this time with the reggae influences toned down and the soul-o-meter turned up to make it more radio friendly.

It always sounded like a strange concoction to me. The slick intro that made it feel like something huge was about to emerge from the radio gives way to a jaunty, reggae-pop melody. It’s almost like it’s two different songs stuck together. That switchover is repeated when the bridge leads into the chorus. The lead singer’s high voice exposes the join even more. Seamless it was not. Neither was Simon Mayo’s link in which he crow bars in the lamest line taking a swipe at the band’s logo that hangs behind them during this performance saying it was painted by his 3 year old. What a snarky git!

China Black were unable to replicate the success of “Searching” though they did knock out a couple of medium sized follow ups and also collaborated with Ladysmith Bkack Mambazo on England World Cup song “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in 1995. One last thing, I wonder why they chose to call their song “Searching” and not “Searchin’” without a ‘g’? Presumably to make it clear they were not Hazell (two ‘l’s) Dean I guess.

Unless you’re a massive fan, I’m guessing most of us could only name one House Of Pain track with that being “Jump Around” of course. They did, however, have five UK Top 40 hits in total though of which this one, “On Point”, was the third when it peaked at No 19. So apparently, this was the band’s very first time on British TV which Mayo tries to big up but to be honest, it’s all a bit of a letdown as “On Point” sounds like a poor man’s “Jump Around” to me.

https://youtu.be/puGu55qVk0w

The lyrics aren’t what you’d call beautiful poetry either. I mean look at this:

Don’t start me up like a rolling stone
Or I’ll leave ya sulking like Maculay Culkin in home alone
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Erik Schrody / Larry Muggerud
On Point lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

The Rolling Stones (more of them later) and Macaulay Culkin aren’t the only people name checked. There are also (not so) honourable mentions for Calvin Klein, Steven Tyler and Ronnie Dio but for me, no one betters this as a track that features Dio in the lyrics:

Mayo continues with his attempt to become Ben Elton in his next link as he references the Neil Hamilton cash-for-questions scandal as he introduces The Three Tenors performing “The Brindisi”. Tenors? Tenners? Get it? Yeah, it’s up there with the ‘sick squid’ joke isn’t it? Why did he bother? To nobody’s surprise, this was all to do with The World Cup and was to promote the concert by Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras which was to be broadcast live on BBC2 from Los Angeles the night before the World Cup final. I didn’t see it as I was down in my hometown of Worcester for my sister’s 21st birthday but I’m guessing my wife’s parents did as they’d loved the Italia ‘90 one (“Nessun Dorma” and all that). They’d taped it off the TV onto a VHS (this was 33 years ago remember) but somehow my mother-in-law had taped EastEnders over it at some point and was desperate that my father-in-law didn’t find out. Every time he asked about watching it again, he was told that the tape couldn’t be found until the concert was officially released commercially and a replacement was purchased.

As for The ‘94 World Cup final between Brazil and Italy, it was an awful match, ended 0-0 and was decided on penalties for the first time ever meaning the competition that started with Diana Ross missing a penalty in the opening ceremony then ended with Roberto Baggio doing the same on the final.

It’s Let Loose again with another one of those hits that seemed to be around the charts for the whole of the Summer. “Crazy For You” would end up selling 400,000 copies. Now, I was under the impression that this lot were a trio but there’s five of them up there on stage with the two unknown extras being the keyboard player and the bass guitarist. So what gives? Well, there are cases of ‘unofficial’ band members that seem to litter pop history. When Andy Taylor left Duran Duran for the second time in 2006, he was replaced by Dom Brown who continues to be the band’s guitarist to this day but who never appears in any promotional material and is not considered a full member. Similarly, Wet Wet Wet’s lead guitarist Graeme Duffin has been with the band since 1983 but has never featured in official photographs nor interviews. And then there’s the A-ha bass player who appears in the background for the video for “The Sun Always Shines On TV”. If you’ve never seen comedian Greg Davies’s routine about this guy, please do search it out.

And now for something completely different…he may not be to everyone’s taste but I’ve always liked Julian Cope though I have to say I haven’t kept up to date with anything he’s done in over 30 years. Whatever your opinion of him, you can’t deny his prolific output. He must be part of a very select club that has released more albums than singles (35 to 24) with most of them being on his own Head Heritage label. And that’s not even counting his time with The Teardrop Explodes!

I think the first solo material of his that I was aware of was his brilliant 1984 single “The Greatness And Perfection Of Love” which should have been a big hit but which failed to make the Top 40. Then came the pop star era of ‘86-‘87 when Julian had his most commercial success with the “World Shut Your Mouth” single and the silver selling “Saint Julian” album. The next few years saw him occasionally pop up in the lower end of the singles chart with under appreciated tracks like “Charlotte Anne” and “Beautiful Love” before releasing his first compilation album in 1992 “Floored Genius” which I bought. By 1994, Cope had been dropped by his record label Island after their relationship disintegrated – the material he was supplying wasn’t what they thought they had signed him for (presumably they wanted endless retreads of “World Shut Your Mouth”). In order to get his songs out there, he signed a one album deal with Def Jam subsidiary American Recordings for the “Autogeddon” album from which the track he performs on TOTP – “I Gotta Walk” – was taken. Even allowing for the fact that the album had entered the charts at No 16, it seems a strange decision to have invited him on the show. What did the youth in the studio audience make of him? Did they know who he was? Two Top 40 singles in seven years meant he was hardly a household name at this point. And then there’s his image. Never one to comply with fashionable trends, Julian is way out there in this performance. The Mohawk hairstyle, the Wee Willie Winkie nightshirt and that’s before we get into his vocal. This really is Vic Reeves club singer territory. At the end, Julian starts flexing his body which really puts me in mind of the Spike character in Notting Hill…

Julian remains a character who operates outside of the mainstream. An enthusiast of and author on Neolithic culture with an interest in paganism and occultism, he’s also a political activist (he took a prominent role in the Poll Tax demonstrations) and counter-culturalist. The arch Druid some have labelled him. Above all though, he is interesting. If you get a chance, give his two volume autobiography Head–On / Repossessed a go. It’s a fascinating read.

At the end of Julian Cope’s performance, Simin Mayo finally comes up with a line worthy of the name. “I know what your Dad’s thinking…and he’s wrong”. And then he goes and spoils it all with some pathetic gag about Reg Presley raking it in and crop circles. Really weak. As for Reg’s song, “Love Is All Around” has reached the halfway point (almost) of its tenure at No 1 as we arrive at week seven. What can I say about this record that I haven’t already said? How about what Wet Wet Wet did next?

Well, even after deleting the single, there were still enough copies in record shops to ensure it stayed in the Top 10 for another three weeks and then another four within the Top 40 after that before it eventually dropped out of the charts. We didn’t see the band again until March the following year (probably wise to have left it a bit after their over exposure in ‘94 – the musical equivalent of “I’d give it five minutes if I were you”) when they released the No 3 single “Julia Says” and parent album “Picture This” in April. Despite the album going to No 1, selling 900,000 copies and being well received by the critics, the band couldn’t seem to escape the shadow of “Love Is All Around” and they only recorded two more albums as the original line up. After a few exits and returns, Marti Pellow left the band for good in 2017 and was replaced by ex-Libery X singer Kevin Simm and the band recorded an album with him and continued to tour. However, in 2022, founder members Tommy Cunningham and Neil Mitchell both left the band leaving bass player Graeme Clark as the only original member.

The play out song is by the aforementioned The Rolling Stones who are back with an album of new material, their first for five years since “Steel Wheels”. The only thing I really remember about “Voodoo Lounge” is the distinctive artwork on the cover. That and the massive marketing campaign that accompanied it courtesy of the band’s new label Virgin. I guess the campaign worked as it did go to No 1 in the UK and sold reasonably well but the press reviews were mixed with it being seen as inconsistent and a rather calculated attempt to recreate the classic Stones sound. Lead single “Love Is Strong” was not a massive hit though, peaking at No 14 over here and a lowly No 91 in the US albeit that it made No 2 in Canada. Interesting that we get the actual promo video shown here rather than the usual montage of clips from the show we’d just watched. Presumably, that’s the power of being rock legends at work.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Killing Joke	Pandemonium	No
2	BlackGirl	90’s Girl	I did not
3	Mariah Carey	Anytime You Need A Friend	Nope
4	China Black	Searching	Nah
5	House Of Pain	On Point	Negative
6	The Three Tenors	The Brindisi	Not for me
7	Let Loose	Crazy For You	No but my wife succumbed to its charms
8	Julian Cope	I Gotta Walk	Bless him but no
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	It’s a no
10	The Rolling Stones	Love Is Strong	And one last no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001kyvt/top-of-the-pops-14071994

TOTP 07 JUL 1994

Posted on April 22, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s the middle of the Summer 1994 and the UK singles chart is stagnating. Of the ten songs on tonight’s TOTP, we’ve already seen seven of them on a previous show. I’m pretty sure that was nothing out of the usual though as record companies kept huge releases back for the Autumn schedules and the Christmas sales period. They probably also figured that the public was spending its money on holidays rather than CDs and cassettes. The only beneficiaries of this would be those annoying hits that the travelling hordes had heard whilst holidaying in Europe that would inevitably end up being huge sellers in the UK. 1994 was not immune to this phenomenon but we won’t get to that particular record for a while yet.

In the meantime, we start the show with a single that I think had only featured so far as the play out song a couple of shows back but was now residing in the Top 10 and so qualified for a studio appearance. I mentioned Gun in my last post when discussing my peculiar superpower for missing the zeitgeist completely and lumping my affections on the wrong horse. The Stone Roses or Gun? Well, I quite like the sound of those Scottish rockers and I’m not sure about all this ‘Madchester’ stuff…dear oh dear. Anyway, whilst King Monkey and co would release one of the most iconic debut albums of all time, Gun did have a few hits the biggest of which was their cover of Cameo’s “Word Up”. Pretty much just a straight up rock treatment of the original stone cold 1986 classic track, it still worked pretty well I thought. Nothing fancy, just a load of squealing guitar riffs where the funky Cameo bass was, a standard rock vocal instead of Larry Blackmon’s idiosyncratic voice and a Genesis “Mama” style cackle when the “W.O.R.D. UP” bit comes along. The lead singer had undergone quite the image change since the last time we saw him. Gone are his long, pony tail locks and in their place a short, spiky peroxide blonde hairdo. He also seems to have taken up the singing with your arms behind your back style which would become Liam Gallagher’s trademark. In fact, I don’t recall Liam striking that pose when Oasis made their TOTP debut on the last show. He couldn’t have copied it off the bloke from Gun surely? Maybe I was ahead of the zeitgeist for once!

One of the few new tracks on the show next and I’m guessing this was one of those dreadful holiday hits imported from Europe that I was talking about before. “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” by Italian dance outfit 2 Cowboys is just an abomination but sadly would prove not to be a one off as there was a flurry of these…how would you describe them? A techno-hoedown? A Eurodance square dance? How about pure, unadulterated shite? Where did all this start? Was it with the line dancing phenomenon driven by Billy Ray Cyrus and his “Achy Breaky Heart”? We certainly seemed to stock a load of cheap line dancing CDs on budget labels in the Our Price store where I was working (we even had to create their own section in the racks). Surely you couldn’t line dance to “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” though? Not without breaking your neck anyway. So, was it with Doop and their Charleston gimmick No 1 from earlier in the year? How about The Grid and their banjo fuelled dance sensation “Swamp Thing” that was riding high in the charts at the time? Or even Bravado and their “Harmonica Man” single? Whoever was responsible for it needed a kick in the Gonfi-Gons. This abhorrent nonsense would lead to one of the worst No 1s of the decade in 1995 when Rednex took “Cotton Eye Joe” to the top of the charts. Shocking stuff. And one final thing, what does ‘Gonfi-Gon’ even mean? I assumed it was Italian for ‘do-si-do’ but according to Google Translate it means ‘swollen swollen’. Nobs.

It’s The B–52’s next (or The B.C. 52’s if you’re being pedantic) with “(Meet) The Flintstones” from the live action film version of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The post-punk art rockers from Athens, Georgia are finally calling it a day this year when they play a residency in Las Vegas starting in May with their final ever show in September bringing the curtain down on nigh on half a century of adventures in American kitsch culture and bubblegum punk beats. And no I’m not sure if those are the right words to describe what they did but how would you describe their career and legacy?

To be honest, I don’t come at that question from a position of much authority nor knowledge. I was hardly aware of anything much about The B-52’s until 1986 when a re-release of “Rock Lobster” made No 12 in the UK charts and the track was played at my nightclub of choice Images On Glass (wanky name) in downtown Worcester. My ever more hip wife already had a copy of “Planet Claire” I think. Then “Love Shack” made them mainstream pop stars in 1990 (though I always hated that song) and then this…let’s face it…truly awful Flinstones single that really didn’t do their legacy justice. Apparently. they were an influence in convincing John Lennon to return to making music with the “Double Fantasy” album. That should be how they are remembered. If you really need a Hanna-Barbera cartoon theme sung by a band in your life then there’s always The Dickies…

https://youtu.be/AymbqNG4mUA

Aswad are back in the TOTP studio again performing “Shine”. This was one of those records that refused to conform to the growing trend that would come to dominate the mid to late 90s that saw singles in and out of the charts within two to three weeks. “Shine” completely bucked this trajectory by spending twelve weeks in total on the Top 40, six of which were consecutive within the Top 10 where it made steady progress to a peak of No 5, even going back up the charts when it had fallen the week before. Maybe it was the seasonal thing I mentioned earlier because there were a few singles that hung around the charts for what seemed like the whole of this Summer – “Crazy” by Let Loose, “Swamp Thing” by The Grid and “I Swear” by All 4 One spring to mind. Or maybe the public just really liked these records?

https://youtu.be/X7iUL4jL-9w

“Shine” would be Aswad’s second biggest hit after “Don’t Turn Around” and they would only grace the UK Top 40 twice more with two minor hits one of which was a cover version of “You’re No Good” which was a big hit for The Swinging Blue Jeans amongst others. Aswad were pretty keen on cover versions in their later career. The aforementioned “Don’t Turn Around” was a cover of a Tina Turner B-side and they also did a version of Ace’s “How Long” with Yazz. They also took part in a reggae tribute album to The Police recording their take on “Roxanne” which Sting must have liked as he subsequently teamed up with them for a version of “Invisible Sun”. I’ve listened to it so you don’t have to and it doesn’t do anything for either artist’s credibility or legacy. It certainly doesn’t ‘shine’ but then what do you expect from an ‘invisible sun’?

Here’s yet another song we’ve already seen courtesy of Elton John with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. Apparently, this was the most played song on radio and TV in the US in 1994. Want to take a guess at who held that position in the UK? Yes, Wet Wet Wet’s version of “Love Is All Around” of course. DJs just couldn’t resist sticking it to us despite the fact that it bored everybody to death by being at No 1 for 15 weeks. Interestingly, the rest of the Top 5 airplay hits of this year included three that were all in the charts around this time – Let Loose, Big Mountain and the afore discussed Aswad. Presumably all that exposure goes some way to explaining their chart longevity. The only one that really surprised me was the second most played record which was “Seven Seconds” by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N’Dour but then it was a huge hit around Europe including here where it peaked at No 3 spending four and a half months on the Top 40 and six weeks inside the Top 10.

I sometimes wonder if The Pretenders get the credit they deserve. Their back catalogue is full of good tunes and in Chrissie Hynde, they have a charismatic lead singer with a unique voice. Their chart stats stand up to scrutiny – 13 UK Top 40 singles of which 5 made the Top 10 plus, of course, a chart topper in “Brass In Pocket” (the first new No 1 single of the 80s). It strikes me though that they never really get talked about as one of the great rock/pop bands. Yes, their eponymous debut album regularly appears in Best Of polls and Hynde was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 but do you hear their music much on the radio these days? Sure, “2000 Miles” gets airplay every Christmas and “I’ll Stand By You” gets a spin every now and again. I guess you’ll hear “Brass In Pocket” on one of those 80s themed radio stations. It doesn’t seem like much though. Clearly, I haven’t done any statistical breakdown of this theory (it’s all just based on my own perception) so I’m at risk of being shot down in flames but I’m pretty damn sure that this hit – “Night In My Veins” – you will not hear on any station any time soon. And that’s a shame as it’s a good song. The almost forgotten follow up to the aforementioned “I’ll Stand By You”, it’s a nice slice of melodic rock that should have got higher than No 25.

Chrissie looks cool as in leather trousers and high heels in this performance but sadly I fear this might be their last ever appearance on the show as they only had one subsequent Top 40 hit when “Human” got to a lowly No 33 in 1999. They have continued to release new material though with their last album “Hate For Sale” released as recently as 2020.

And yet another song that was huge over the Summer of 1994. I’m pretty sure this is the third time for All 4 One with “I Swear” on the show so to shake things up, they’ve gone for a live by satellite set up from Malibu as opposed to the two previous TOTP studio performances.

This optics in this with the four members of the group walking along the beach with microphones in hand looks completely mad. They’re fooling nobody. Was it to try and keep in line with the show’s live vocal policy? They’re surely miming?! I’ve not seen anything so unconvincing since Jason Donovan wandered along that mountain range strumming his unpowered electric guitar in the video for “Too Many Broken Hearts”! They should have just embraced the completely ludicrous nature of this and gone full New Order on Venice Beach, California performing “Regret” in the company of the cast of Baywatch, David Hasselhoff and all.

Hold the front page! Take That release a single that doesn’t go straight to No 1! Yes, after four consecutive chart toppers, the lads have to settle for the relative failure of a No 3 hit in “Love Ain’t Here Anymore”. Now you could make a reasonable case for this outcome as being down to the song being the sixth single released from their “Everything Changes” album (who did they think they were, Michael Jackson?). However, it is my firm belief that it missed the top spot on account of it not being very good. A big, sloppy ballad deliberately written to make their teenage female fans swoon, it’s basically a rewrite of “A Million Love Songs” but with some awful lyrical rhymes. I mean “It’s gone away to a town called yesterday”? Please.

Two questions about this performance occur to me. What the hell are they wearing and what on earth was that squeal that Gary Barlow let out at the song’s…erm…climax?! Might be a poor choice of word that on reflection.

https://youtu.be/Or6IoyMeu9M

Wet Wet Wet clearly disagree with Take That’s assertion that “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” as they are still No 1 with “Love Is All Around”. As with All 4 One earlier, the TOTP producers have tried to alleviate the monotony of a persistent chart botherer by getting in a guest presenter just to introduce this one song. Consequently, alongside regular host Mark Goodier, appears Reg Presley on his shoulder. Reg, of course, was the guy who wrote “Love Is All Around” back in 1967 for The Troggs. He does a nice little turn as well, not fluffing his lines and seemingly well chuffed to be back on TOTP. If you listen carefully, as the camera cuts away to Wet Wet Wet, you can hear Goodier call Presley a star to which Reg replies “Thanks”. Obviously, he’s also on the show to plug a Troggs Greatest Hits album that has been released in the wake of the success of the Wets’ cover version but let’s ignore that.

Marti Pellow, alongside his two guitarists, look like they belong in 1967 and its Summer of Love that Reg references in his intro with their hippy length hair. I recall a headline on the front cover of Smash Hits when they first started growing their hair that said “Och aye Jock McKay, look at the state of the Wets!”. Not sure that would be allowed these days. Sadly, Reg Presley died from lung cancer in 2013 aged 71.

The play out song is another cover version but an unlikely and rather heinous one – “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Abigail anyone? What? Sorry…who?! Well, her full name is Abigail Zsiga who, despite the exotic name, hailed from Warrington and she supplied the vocals for a minor hit called “I Feel You” by Love Decade in 1992 (no me neither). After that, she carved out a rather niche career of recording Hi-NRG versions of popular songs including k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving”, REM’s “Losing My Religion” and this Nirvana classic. It’s all rather nasty but at least you can hear far more clearly what the actual lyrics were as opposed to the original. It’s not much of an endorsement though is it?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Gun	Word Up	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	2 Cowboys	Everybody Gonfi-Gon	As if
3	The B-52s	(Meet) The Flintstones	Nope
4	Aswad	Shine	No
5	Elton John	Can You Feel The Love Tonight	I did not
6	The Pretenders	Night In My Veins	It’s a no from me
7	All 4 One	I Swear	No chance
8	Take That	Love Ain’t Here Anymore	Nah
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	And no
10	Abigail	Smells Like Teen Spirit	Certainly not

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001kyvr/top-of-the-pops-07071994

TOTP 30 JUN 1994

Posted on April 19, 2023 by 80stastic

Despite my recent outrage at the omnipresence of Eurodance in the UK charts in the mid 90s (and therefore also on TOTP), I’m sure if I did some proper statistical analysis of the musical genres represented on the show, it would tell me that the mix of categories was eclectic. No, not eclectic but mad, bonkers, all over the place. Tonight’s show is a prime example. Yes, there are plenty of dance tunes (of varying quality) but there’s also some out and out pop, an exponent of the New Wave of New Wave (whatever that was), the debut of a rock ‘n’ roll band (definitely not indie…erm…maybe) who would dominate the 90s, a mega selling cover of an old 60s tune and hell, even a memorable No 1 from 1979! What a basket case of a show! The host is Bruno Brookes who I have to say I have warmed to since his return to the programme after the ‘year zero’ revamp era. I couldn’t be doing with him during his 80s pomp but compared to Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo, I’m finding his matey presenting style a bit more acceptable.

First up is a tune that I reviewed as part of the TOTP that was broadcast on 29 July 1993. Back then, “Caught In The Middle” by Juliet Roberts was a Breaker but as that section doesn’t exist anymore, she’s opening this show with a performance in the studio. In that first review, I drew some comparisons with Shara Nelson who was also on that day but there’s no Shara this time round so I’ll have to think of something else to say. Well, back in 1993, the single made No 24 and was produced by Danny D (of D-Mob fame) and remixed by Roger Sanchez. However, a David Morales remix that lit up the dance floors of clubs in 1994 demanded a release of its own and so it was that it was put out again, this time peaking at No 14. What are the differences between the two versions? I’m afraid my lack of dance music knowledge embarrasses me here but the Morales remix does seem to have a faster bpm which requires some controlled breathing and singing techniques from Juliet to get through it. This would prove to be Juliet’s biggest ever hit and she has not released any material since 2002 though she remains in demand as a backing singer.

That pure pop record next as Let Loose are finally given free rein to showcase themselves to the UK at large. I say ‘finally’ as they’d actually been around Take That style for over a year before this appearance and their single – “Crazy” – had originally been released back in April of 1993. It had just missed the Top 40 then but their record label Mercury obviously believed in the song and so it was re-released with a big promotional push and a chart entry at No 24 was achieved. There then followed a climb that was becoming most atypical within the UK Top 40 around this time whereby the single rose in small increments five weeks on the trot to get a foothold on the No 4 position. The story didn’t end there though. It stayed within the Top 10 for a further six weeks including two at No 2 when only the extraordinary sales of Wet Wet Wet kept it off the top spot. In total, it spent sixteen weeks inside the Top 40 and nine inside the Top 10. Perhaps most remarkable of all was that it would become the UK’s eighth best selling single of 1994, shifting more copies than D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” which spent four weeks at No 1 at the start of the year.

How can all this be explained? Well, it was supremely radio friendly becoming a staple of daytime playlists to the point that the band’s lead singer himself – Richie Wermerling – had this to say of the song (courtesy of @TOTPFacts):

Let Loose lead singer Richie Wermerling wrote "Crazy For You": "It was around for months and even I had to turn off the radio after a while. It used to come on everywhere I was – sometimes I'd have to hide behind counters in supermarkets." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 7, 2023

The single’s success led to the re-release of another early single (“Seventeen”) which though nowhere near the sales phenomenon of its predecessor made a respectable No 11. Despite being pin up material and playing catchy pop music, Let Loose were never going to seriously worry Take That as the nation’s favourite boy band. The position of contender for that role would be filled by Boyzone come the end of the year. However, they did notch up seven Top 40 hits over two years before disbanding.

And here it is. The inevitable appearance of some nasty dance music in the form of Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman. After the gravity defying chart run of “I Like To Move It” that remained aloft in the Top 40 for seventeen weeks, there were no surprises for guessing how main man Erick Morillo would follow it up. Just chuck out something that sounds exactly the same! What to call it? Something with the word ‘move’ in the title will do again. No need to overthink it. Just shameless. The ‘lyrics’ to “Go On Move” bang on about women shaking their bodies and then there’s some nonsensical scatting at the start. Look at this:

Bibidy, bom bi bom, mek, house go mad
Bibidy, bom bi bom, mek, jazz go mad
Bibidy, bom bi bom, mek, house go mad
Bibidy, bom bi bom, mek, jazz go mad
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Erick A. Morillo / Mark H. Quashie / Peter Tulloch
Go on Move lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

The use of the word ‘Bibidy’ isn’t inspired by the “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” song from Disney’s Cinderella animation but, according to my research, a Jamaican term for men’s underwear. Nice. In trade publication Music Week, reviewer James Hamilton described it as:

“Gruff ragga ‘g’wan move’ shouting and ‘blippily bebop’ scatting drily percussive ‘I Like To Move It’ type bogie shuffler”
Hamilton, James (June 25, 1994). “Dj directory” (PDF). Music Week, in Record Mirror (Dance Update Supplemental Insert). p. 5. Retrieved April 18, 2021.

That just about sums up this whole shoddy affair. Somehow, the good old British public bought enough copies to send it to No 7. Thanks for that.

It’s that No 1 from 1979 next. Surely one of the most memorable chart toppers ever, “I Don’t Like Mondays” was the second consecutive No 1 single for The Boomtown Rats after “Rat Trap” the year before. They were the biggest band in the UK. I was only 11 at the time and not exactly in tune with current chart trends but even I knew this song and The Boomtown Rats. The elder brother of a kid I knew up the street was a big fan. Not that I knew it at the time but so was my wife who asked her parents for their “Tonic For The Troops” album for Christmas ‘78 (they bought her “Nightflight To Venus” by Boney M instead).

By 1981 though, the hits had started to dry up. The New Romantics movement was in ascendancy with blousy young heroes like Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran capturing the nation’s imagination and The Rats were seen as old hat. By 1984 they were completely washed up. And then came that news report from Ethiopia that Bob Geldof couldn’t ignore leading to the Band Aid record and the Live Aid concert and that moment when he sings the line “And the lesson today is how to die”…

Go to 3:08 for that moment

The origins of the lyrics of the whole song are well documented of course. The school shooting in San Diego by 16 year old Brenda Spencer who fired at children in a school playground because, by her own words, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens the day up” is pretty bleak source material. Geldof couldn’t have known that just a few years later it would provide an iconic moment in rock history as part of an effort to use the power of music for the good of humanity.

* For my full review of Live Aid, follow the link below:

https://80spop.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/live-aid-13-jul-1985/(opens in a new tab)

None of the above explains why “I Don’t Like Mondays” was back in the charts in 1994 though. It was a pretty obvious reason in truth. A Boomtown Rats / Bob Geldof retrospective Best Of album entitled “Loudmouth” had been released and the track was re-released to promote it. The album made the Top 10 though the single only made No 38 so I’m a little surprised that it warranted a whole slot to itself. It would have been a Breaker under the old regime no doubt.

The moment has finally arrived. It wouldn’t be 1994 – the year Britpop took off according to many – without them. Stand by (me) for the time has arrived for the TOTP debut of Oasis! Working in a record shop in the centre of Manchester at the time, it was kind of hard to avoid Liam, Noel and co but I have to say I’d not got on board immediately. Whilst some of my work colleagues were all over debut single “Supersonic”, I was picking fault in their rhyming of Elsa with Alka-Seltzer in the lyrics. Second single “Shakermaker” didn’t quite do it for me either but by the time third release “Live Forever” came along, I could resist no longer and was all in. I’m pretty sure that I could tell that something big was brewing and I didn’t want to miss out. Record breaking debut album “Definitely Maybe” was duly purchased and eighteen months later I was at the second of their first outdoor headline gigs at Maine Road.

Back in the Summer of 1994 though, why wasn’t I immediately swept up in the Oasis tsunami? Admittedly, I had some previous when it came to ignoring huge Manchester bands just as they were breaking. The Smiths? No thanks, not poppy enough for me. The Stone Roses? Erm no. I rather like the look of Scottish rockers Gun instead. And so to Oasis. Why didn’t I watch this TOTP performance and think “Sign me up. I’m totally here for this”? Was I put off by the Genesis apeing practice of having drummer Tony McCarroll centre stage? It’s interesting to note that the focal point of the group Liam and Noel are furthest away from the stage here. Presumably that was deliberate but it seems out of character. Rather more predictably, poor old Bonehead and Guigsy hardly get a look in.

“Shakermaker” would peak at No 11, considerably higher than “Supersonic” (No 31) so we should have all been on alert at this point to the rise of the band. Although it would continue to sell throughout the next few years along with the band’s other singles (we were still regularly ordering copies of all of them for years), it remains the band’s only single released from their first two albums not to be certified gold.

Another dance tune now but I didn’t expect this one to sound like it does. Crystal Waters burst into the charts in 1991 with the hypnotic house sound of “Gypsy Woman” (“La da dee, la dee da”) but this single “Ghetto Day” (a double A- side with “What I Need”) sounds like something off Betty Boo’s second album. Seriously, it sounds like “Let Me Take You There” doesn’t it? She even seems to have changed her hair to a Boo style bob. It turned out though that the record buying public weren’t too keen on the Betty Boo version of Crystal Waters and, despite this appearance, the single got no higher than this week’s chart position of No 40. To be fair, the record buying public hadn’t been too keen on this Betty Boo version of Betty Boo so Crystal had no chance.

The New Wave of New Wave was a terrible name for a musical movement but then so was Britpop I guess. Unlike the latter, it didn’t live long in the memory either. So what was it and who was in it? Well, it pretty much did what it said on the tin. Bands that played guitar driven rock music that had post punk and new wave influences. And its exponents? Well, one of the main bands of the movement were These Animal Men whose name I remember but whose sound I do not. I’m guessing though that it was similar to S*M*A*S*H who were the first band of that sub genre to appear on TOTP the other week. Initially, there were other names associated with the New Wave of New Wave but as that scene petered out and Britpop became the dominant force, it was the latter that they became known for. I’m talking about Sleeper, Echobellly, Shed Seven and Elastica amongst others.

The only thing I can recall of These Animal Men was that they released an EP called “Taxi For These Animal Men”. So was a taxi required? Let’s have a listen to “Speeed King” then…

As I thought, they sound like S*M*A*S*H with maybe a bit of Menswear thrown in though I think they had a bit more to them than this These Animal Men who seemed to peddle a very specific (dare I say one trick pony) style of music. Host Bruno Brookes introduces them as being the ‘TOTP showcase’ which seems to have been another way of saying “this lot don’t have any hits but we’ve shoved them on the show to prove how hip we are”. “Speeed King” got no higher than No 95 and These Animal Men were done and dusted by 1998 when they split.

The Grid again? Is this the third outing for “Swamp Thing”? Despite this being a brand new performance, it’s basically exactly the same as they did the last time they were on including the rather odd set up for the banjo player. This single was one of a number that just sold and sold that Summer alongside Let Loose, Aswad and of course Wet Wet Wet. I must have sold hundreds of copies of those titles to the punters in the Manchester Piccadilly Our Price store where I was working at the time. One day I served a guy who asked if he could have discount on what he was buying. As there was no valid reason for his request I replied in the negative. He then came back with “I’m asking you politely for discount” to which I again replied “No”. My customer then advised me that he knew people who would come and kneecap me if I didn’t do as he wanted. It was that kind of place. A swamp thing? More like a cesspit of humanity. For the record, I still didn’t give him any discount and nobody did turn up to kneecap me.

https://youtu.be/wQ5Y0QKo2gA

Wet Wet Wet remain steadfastly secure in the No 1 spot with “Love Is All Around”. To try and mix things up a bit, TOTP have got hold of a piece of footage from a concert the band did at Wembley that week and show that instead of another studio performance or the video.

In the clip, Marti Pellow has a curious affectation where he twirls around making a welcoming gesture which put me in mind of Stephen Rea’s turn in Interview With A Vampire:

I’d have to say that Marti has a better smile than a vampire though.

The play out song is “Living In The Sunshine” by Clubhouse. The follow up to “Light My Fire”, ah…really though…who cares? Certainly not me.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Juliet Roberts	Caught In The Middle	Nope
2	Let Loose	Crazy	No but I think my wife succumbed to its charms
3	Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman	Go On Move	Never!
4	The Boomtown Rats	I Don’t Like Mondays	No but I must have it on something surely?
5	Oasis	Shakermaker	Not the single but I bought there album. Didn’t we all?
6	Crystal Waters	Ghetto Day / What I Need	Nah
7	These Animal Men	Speeed King	No
8	The Grid	Swamp Thing	I did not
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	And no
10	Clubhouse	Living In The Sunshine	As if

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001krcc/top-of-the-pops-30061994